EU Deltamethrin Residue Limits

The EU limits for deltamethrin are set in Annex II of Regulation (EC) No 396/2005, and the residue is measured as deltamethrin (cis-deltamethrin). The current values come from Commission Regulation (EU) 2026/876 and apply from 12 May 2026. They range from 0.01 mg/kg, the limit of detection for the testing method (marked *), up to 9 mg/kg for herbal infusions made from flowers and leaves ^[1]. The full list of all 381 commodity lines, each with its source, is in the panel document.

Approach: I pulled every deltamethrin entry from the EU Pesticides Database under Regulation 396/2005 and checked the recitals of Regulation (EU) 2026/876.

Main values (mg/kg)

Commodity	MRL
Herbal infusions, flowers (e.g. chamomile, hibiscus, linden) and leaves/herbs (e.g. rooibos, maté)	9 [2][3]
Teas	5 [4]
Barley, oat, rye, maize, sorghum, millet, buckwheat	2 [5][6]
Wheat; rice	1 [7][8]
Lamb's lettuce, rucola, cresses, baby leaf, grape leaves, watercress, chervil	2 [9][10]
Herbs (parsley, chives, basil, thyme etc.)	1.5 [11]
Dry lentils, peas, lupins; table olives	1 [12][13]
Carobs	0.7 [4]
Other small fruits and berries (blueberries, currants etc.); olives for oil	0.6 [14][15]
Lettuces; aubergines	0.4 [16][17]
Leeks, celeries, fennel, rhubarb, spring onions; herbal roots	0.3 [18][19]
Apples, grapes, strawberries, cucurbits with edible peel, pumpkins, legume vegetables, rapeseed, papayas, Chinese cabbage	0.2 [20][21][22][23]
Apricots, sweet cherries, peaches; sweet peppers, okra, kales	0.15 [24][25]
Tomatoes, plums, quinces, broccoli, cauliflower	0.1 [26][27]
Citrus fruits	0.02 [28]
Potatoes; Brussels sprouts; dry beans; tree nuts	0.01* [29][30][31]
Coffee beans 0.1*; cocoa, hops, spices (seed, fruit, bark, bud, pistil, aril) 0.05*; ginger-type spices (liquorice, turmeric) 0.5	[32]

Animal products (mg/kg)

• Mammal fat and edible offal (other than liver and kidney): 0.5 for swine, bovine, sheep, goat, equine and other farmed animals ^[33][34].
• Swine: muscle 0.03, liver 0.03*, kidney 0.03* ^[35][36].
• Poultry: fat 0.1, muscle 0.02*, liver 0.02* ^[37][38].
• Milk: 0.05 ^[39].
• Eggs: 0.02* ^[40].
• Honey: 0.05* ^[41].

What the 2026 amendment did

• Cherries: for deltamethrin, the only application to change the limits under Regulation (EU) 2026/876 was for cherries ^[42].
• Basis: the Commission set the requested limits "at the levels recommended by the Authority" (EFSA) ^[43].

Lines with no value listed

• Count: 44 lines in the database have no deltamethrin value. Most are heading rows of the product hierarchy, such as the "swine" or "oilseeds" headers.
• Ginger and horseradish: both appear with footnote numbers (10) and (11) and no value ^[44][45]. The database doesn't give the text of those footnotes, so I can't say what limit applies to them.