EU CSRD: Commission adopts revised ESRS and voluntary reporting standard

On 3 July 2026, the European Commission adopted two Delegated Acts comprising the revised European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) and the voluntary reporting standards under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). 

The package includes:

• Commission Delegated Regulation of 3 July 2026 amending Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/2772 as regards the simplification of certain sustainability reporting standards;

• Annexes containing the revised ESRS; 

• Commission Delegated Regulation of 3 July 2026 supplementing Directive 2013/34/EU by establishing sustainability reporting standards for voluntary use by undertakings protected by the value chain cap;

• Annexes containing the voluntary reporting standards; 

• Staff working document; and 

• Commission press release. 

The Council and the European Parliament will now scrutinise both Delegated Acts for two months (extendable by a further two months). If neither institution objects within the review period, the Acts will be published in the Official Journal and enter into force.

Revised ESRS

Undertakings within the scope of the CSRD must apply the revised ESRS for financial years beginning on or after 1 January 2027 (with reporting due in 2028). 

Undertakings subject to the CSRD for the financial year starting on or after 1 January 2026 (with reporting due in 2027) may, however, apply the revised ESRS as from that year instead of the existing ESRS.

Undertakings that elect to apply the existing ESRS for the financial year starting on or after 1 January 2026 may nonetheless apply certain reliefs introduced by the new Regulation. 

In either case, undertakings must clearly state in their report which version of the standards they are applying for the relevant financial year.

The Omnibus I Directive required the Commission to adopt a delegated act amending the existing ESRS within six months of its entry into force. It was required that the Commission adopt those revised standards having regard to technical advice from EFRAG, which submitted its recommendations to the Commission on 2 December 2025 (see our previous blog post). The adoption follows the Commission's public consultation, which closed on 3 June 2026 (see our previous blog post).

Voluntary standard

The voluntary sustainability reporting standard serves two key purposes:

• First, it supports companies not subject to mandatory sustainability reporting requirements by offering a simple, standardised framework for voluntary disclosure. This should make it easier for those companies to report relevant sustainability information, monitor their own sustainability performance, and enhance their access to sustainable finance.

• Second, the voluntary standard addresses the so-called trickle-down effect in value chain reporting. Under the Omnibus I Directive, value chain companies with fewer than 1,000 employees are entitled to decline requests for sustainability information that go beyond the disclosures set out in the voluntary standard (the so-called “value chain cap”).

The voluntary standard is based on the Recommendation on voluntary sustainability reporting for non-listed small and medium-sized enterprises (VSME), adopted by the Commission on 30 July 2025. The standard covers the same sustainability topics as the ESRS, but in a manner suited to smaller companies outside the scope of the CSRD. The new Delegated Regulation states that changes made to the VSME standard to develop the voluntary standard were kept to a minimum and were primarily made to ensure alignment with the revised ESRS. For more information on the Commission’s Recommendation, see our previous blog post.

The new voluntary standard comes with two different start dates, depending on who is using it:

• For larger companies already required to report under the CSRD, the value chain cap applies from financial year 2027. From that point, those companies cannot request sustainability information from smaller suppliers and partners beyond what the voluntary standard covers.

• For smaller businesses that wish to report voluntarily, the voluntary standard is available with immediate effect from the date the Regulation enters into force. This applies to businesses with no more than 1,000 employees that are not otherwise required to report under the CSRD.

ESRS for Third-Country Groups

The ESRS and the voluntary standards do not apply to non-EU companies and groups reporting under Article 40a of the Accounting Directive. Those companies will need to report under a separate standard, which EFRAG recently renamed the ESRS for Third-Country Groups (ESRS-TC), previously referred to as the N-ESRS. 

The draft ESRS-TC was approved by the EFRAG Sustainability Reporting Board (SRB) on 1 July 2026, and EFRAG is expected to publish it for public consultation on 23 July 2026. 

The Commission expects to adopt the ESRS-TC in 2027.

Next steps

Both Delegated Regulations will now be subject to scrutiny by the Council and the European Parliament for two months (extendable by two additional months).

If neither institution objects within the review period, the revised ESRS will be published in the Official Journal and will enter into force.

For more information on the CSRD and ESRS, see our CSRD Quick Guide and EU CSRD demystified materials.