ESEF Announcement
The European Single Electronic Format (ESEF) is a regulation announced by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) that requires European listed companies to submit their annual financial reports starting January 1, 2020 in Inline XBRL format. All companies in the European Union (EU) region are required to comply with this mandate for their 2020 annual reports. However, due to the pandemic, member countries have been allowed to delay the implementation of the mandate. ESEF Resources
Inline XBRL or iXBRL is a business reporting framework enabling machine-readable tags to be embedded in a human-readable document. This increases transparency and accuracy of financial data, and makes it comparable across companies and sectors.
ESEF Taxonomy
A taxonomy is a dictionary of concepts issued by a regulator that all issuers are required to use.
Based on the IFRS taxonomy, ESMA has issued a taxonomy called the ESEF taxonomy, that all issuers in the EU are required to use for creating their annual reports in the iXBRL format. ESEF taxonomies for 2019 and 2020 are given below in the 23 official EU languages.
2019 ESEF TAXONOMY
2020 ESEF TAXONOMY
Regulatory Technical Standards
Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) are ESMA-defined rules delineating guidelines, requirements and specifications of annual reports that need to be submitted in the iXBRL format.
Useful Resources To Get You Started With ESEF
Right from the conception of ESEF, IRIS has been publishing literature meant to guide people and organizations on XBRL and allied fields. We do this through many channels including blog posts and eBooks among other things. Here’s a list of links that may help you on your XBRL journey.
Educational Webinars
IRIS has conducted many educational webinars around the ESEF mandate and the importance of getting it right. The impact that this mandate has on the finance function in an organization, on investor relations and on overall quality of annual reports, are just a few of the things that have been explored in these discussions. These webinars may prove to be a good source of learning for people or institutions interested in ESEF and allied fields of enquiry. They can be accessed using the links provided below.
Country Wise ESEF Delay Announcements
Due to the economic disruption brought on by the pandemic, it was decided that EU member states would have the option to delay the filing of their annual reports by a year. Consequently, a number of EU states have decided to opt for this postponement. The list of countries along with official announcements pertaining to ESEF implementation can be found below.
| S. No. | Country | Delay Status | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Austria | To be announced | – |
| 2 | Belgium | Postponed until January 1, 2022 | 29 January 2021 |
| 3 | Bulgaria | Postponed until January 1, 2022 | 27 January 2021 |
| 4 | Croatia | Postponed until January 1, 2022 | 05 February 2021 |
| 5 | Cyprus | Postponed until January 1, 2022 | 28 January 2021 |
| 6 | Czech Republic | To be announced | – |
| 7 | Denmark | Postponed until January 1, 2022 | 22 February 2021 |
| 8 | Estonia | Postponed until January 1, 2022 | 4 March 2021 |
| 9 | Finland | Postponed until January 1, 2022 | 21 December 2020 |
| 10 | France | Postponed until January 1, 2022 | 05 February 2021 |
| 11 | Germany | No delay | 17 June 2020 |
| 12 | Greece | Postponed until January 1, 2022 | 29 January 2021 |
| 13 | Great Britain | Postponed until January 1, 2022 | 05 November 2020 |
| 14 | Hungary | Postponed until January 1, 2022 | 16 February 2021 |
| 15 | Iceland | To be announced | – |
| 16 | Ireland | Postponed until January 1, 2022 | 27 January 2021 |
| 17 | Italy | Postponed until January 1, 2022 | 02 March 2021 |
| 18 | Latvia | Postponed until January 1, 2022 | 11 December 2020 |
| 19 | Lithuania | Postponed until January 1, 2022 | 25 January 2021 |
| 20 | Luxembourg | Postponed until January 1, 2022 | 10 February 2021 |
| 21 | Malta | Postponed until January 1, 2022 | 03 February 2021 |
| 22 | Netherlands | Postponed until January 1, 2022 | 26 January 2021 |
| 23 | Norway | To be announced | – |
| 24 | Poland | Postponed until January 1, 2022 | 15 December 2020 |
| 25 | Portugal | Postponed until January 1, 2022 | 27 January 2021 |
| 26 | Romania | Postponed until January 1, 2022 | 28 February 2021 |
| 27 | Slovakia | Postponed until January 1, 2022 | 10 February 2021 |
| 28 | Slovenia | To be announced | – |
| 29 | Spain | Postponed until January 1, 2022 | 12 February 2021 |
| 30 | Sweden | Postponed until January 1, 2022 | 22 January 2021 |
Last updated: 8th March 2021
Contact Us
IRIS has been involved with XBRL implementations across 40+ countries for over 15 years. With over 5 million filings and counting, you can rest assured that your filing is in the safest hands with us. Thanks in part to our highly experienced XBRL domain experts, we are always available to help you get started with ESEF. Contact us for a free consultation using the form below or talk to us directly over email or phone.
ESEF Resources
ESEF Resources
ESEF Resources
