Revised ESRS and Voluntary Standard Published in the EU Official Journal

The revised European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) and the new Voluntary Sustainability Reporting Standard have now been published in the Official Journal of the European Union.

The European Commission adopted both delegated acts on 3 July 2026. They were published in the Official Journal on 21 September, following scrutiny by the European Parliament and the Council. EFRAG confirmed the publication on 22 September and published updated guidance and supporting resources.

The final Official Journal texts contain minor amendments and corrections compared with the versions published by the Commission in July. The versions published in the Official Journal are therefore the definitive legal texts.

Revised ESRS: What Is Now Final

Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/1563 amends Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/2772 and replaces the existing ESRS annexes with the revised standards.

According to the European Commission, the revision reduces mandatory datapoints by more than 60% and the total number of datapoints by more than 70%. The Commission also estimates a reduction in reporting costs of more than 30% per company.

The changes go beyond removing individual datapoints. The revised standards shorten and restructure requirements and modify several rules governing how sustainability information is identified and prepared.

Materiality is one of the areas revised in ESRS 1. The standards allow an undertaking to use a top-down approach, a bottom-up approach or a combination of the two when identifying material impacts, risks and opportunities.

Under a top-down approach, the assessment can begin with the undertaking’s strategy and business model, including its sectors, geographies and upstream and downstream value chain. A more detailed assessment is required where materiality or non-materiality cannot be determined at that level.

The standards also introduce reasonable and supportable information available without undue cost or effort into several parts of the reporting process, including aspects of materiality assessment and value-chain information.

Specific reliefs are available for acquisitions and disposals, partial reporting of a metric where reliable data for the full reporting boundary cannot be obtained, and the treatment of certain joint operations.

A new Voluntary Sustainability Reporting Standard

Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/1560 establishes a sustainability reporting standard for voluntary use.

Article 2 provides that undertakings not subject to mandatory sustainability reporting under Articles 19a and 29a of the Accounting Directive may disclose sustainability information voluntarily in accordance with the standard.

Annex I gives the standard a more specific intended scope: it is designed for undertakings that, on their balance sheet date, do not exceed an average of 1,000 employees during the preceding financial year.

The framework is based on the standard previously adopted under Commission Recommendation (EU) 2025/1710 and retains its modular structure:

• a Basic Module; and
• a Comprehensive Module.

The Voluntary Standard is intended to help undertakings respond to sustainability information requests from business partners, banks and investors, while also supporting internal management of sustainability issues.

The Value chain cap Is Narrower Than the Full Voluntary Standard

Regulation 2026/1560 also establishes the value chain cap.

It sets the upper limit of sustainability information that undertakings subject to mandatory reporting may require, for CSRD reporting purposes, from protected undertakings in their value chains.

The cap does not cover every disclosure in the Voluntary Standard. Article 3 specifies that it comprises only the datapoints listed in Annex II.

The full Voluntary Standard therefore has a broader scope than the value chain cap, which is limited to the datapoints in Annex II.

Effective Dates and the 2026 Transition

The revised ESRS Regulation enters into force on 10 November 2026 and applies to financial years beginning on or after 1 January 2027.

For financial years beginning between 1 January and 31 December 2026, undertakings already reporting under ESRS may use either the previous standards or the revised version. Where the previous ESRS are used, specified reliefs from the revised framework may also be applied, including those relating to the top-down materiality approach, undue cost or effort, acquisitions and disposals, partial reporting scope for certain metrics, and certain joint operations.

The sustainability statement must indicate which version of the standards has been applied.

Regulation 2026/1560 entered into force on 24 September 2026. Article 3 on the value chain cap applies to financial years beginning on or after 1 January 2027.

EFRAG Support for the Voluntary Standard

Regulation 2026/1560 states that undertakings using the Voluntary Standard may also use practical guidance provided by EFRAG. Annex I also directs users to the EFRAG Knowledge Hub for guidance, templates and supporting resources.

EFRAG is also preparing updated digital tools for the Voluntary Standard; these supporting materials do not form part of the mandatory legal requirements.

Draft XBRL Taxonomy for the Revised ESRS

Separately, EFRAG published the 2026 Revised ESRS Draft XBRL Taxonomy on 17 September 2026 together with a Technical Explanatory Note.

The taxonomy is aligned with the 2026 Draft List of Datapoints and is designed to support machine-readable sustainability statements in Inline XBRL.

The public consultation is open until 11 November 2026.

EFRAG classifies both the Draft Taxonomy and the Technical Explanatory Note as non-authoritative supporting material. They do not replace the ESRS, do not constitute implementation guidance and do not introduce disclosure requirements. Publication of the taxonomy also does not make digital tagging mandatory.

Following consultation, EFRAG plans to finalise the taxonomy as technical advice and hand it over to the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) and the European Commission by the end of 2026.

For Practitioners: Preparing for 2027

For 2026 reporting, companies applying ESRS should confirm which version of the standards has been used and keep a clear record of any transitional reliefs applied.

For financial years beginning from 1 January 2027, existing disclosure inventories and datapoint mappings should be reviewed against the revised standards, including changes to materiality assessment, reporting boundaries and available reliefs.

Companies requesting sustainability information from value-chain partners should also check those requests against the Annex II datapoints that define the value chain cap.