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European Union · Last checked 13 November 2026

European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA): regulatory returns

ESMA is the EU's securities markets regulator and supervisor. Rather than collecting most returns itself, it mostly writes the technical standards, guidelines and reporting templates that define how firms report to National Competent Authorities (NCAs) or to trade repositories ESMA registers and supervises, and it directly supervises certain entities (trade repositories, credit rating agencies, data reporting services providers). This page covers the reporting regimes ESMA defines or itself collects: ESEF, EMIR, SFTR, MiFIR/MAR (transaction reporting and FIRDS reference data), AIFMD and the MMF Regulation. Source

Website: www.esma.europa.eu

8returns
5 of 8returns with published validation rules
0 of 8returns with firm-by-firm public data
20official documents, 6 with a SHA-256 fingerprint

File formats: CSV, XML, iXBRL, Other.

What this page covers

8 returns, covering the regimes named on ESMA's own Data Reporting hub page that this library does not already cover under another regulator: ESEF (issuer disclosure), EMIR (derivatives trade reporting and the new Active Account Requirement reporting), SFTR (securities financing transactions), MiFIR/MAR transaction reporting and reference data (FIRDS), AIFMD Annex IV and the MMF Regulation's Article 37 reporting. For every regime except FIRDS and MMFR, the firms report to a National Competent Authority or a trade repository, not to ESMA itself; each return below says who receives it, rather than implying ESMA collects the data centrally. CSDR reporting and SSR (short-selling) reporting are named on the same hub page but were not read this session and are left out. It does not repeat the European Banking Authority's or EIOPA's returns, which the library covers under those authorities; where an EU banking or insurance return is an EBA or EIOPA return, it is not repeated here. Source

How firms file

The library records no filing system for the ESMA. Each return's page gives its format and how it is sent, where the regulator says.

The returns (8)

Plain name first, the ESMA's code in brackets. Each return has its own page: what it is for, who files it, the deadline, the templates, the validation rules, the documents and the sources.

Annual financial reports in the European Single Electronic Format (ESEF)Group: Issuer disclosureHow often: YearlyFormat: iXBRLIn force
Derivatives trade reporting under EMIR (EMIR Art 9)Group: Markets and infrastructureHow often: When an event happensFormat: XMLIn force
Active Account Requirement (AAR) reporting (EMIR Art 7b)Group: Markets and infrastructureHow often: Every six monthsFormat: CSVIn force
Securities financing transaction reporting (SFTR)Group: Markets and infrastructureHow often: When an event happensFormat: XMLIn force
MiFIR transaction reporting (MiFIR Art 26)Group: Markets and infrastructureHow often: When an event happensFormat: XMLIn force
Financial instruments reference data (FIRDS, MiFIR Art 27 / MAR Art 4)Group: Markets and infrastructureHow often: VariesFormat: XMLIn force
AIFMD Annex IV reporting (AIFMD Art 24)Group: Fund managementHow often: VariesFormat: OtherIn force
Money market fund reporting (MMFR Art 37)Group: Fund managementHow often: QuarterlyFormat: OtherIn force

Download this list: ESMA returns (CSV) or everything on this page (JSON), free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 with the credit line on the library page.

Data the ESMA publishes from the returns

  • ESMA registers (FIRDS, FITRS, Volume Cap mechanism)

    Added up across firms · XML and Excel result files

    Public registers of financial instrument reference data (FIRDS), equity and non-equity transparency calculation results (FITRS) and Double/Single Volume Cap mechanism results and suspensions, published and updated on ESMA's website. Source

    From: FIRDS (MiFIR Art 27 / MAR Art 4)

    Reuse: The regulator's general licence terms apply (see the top-level licence block); no separate reuse terms were found for these registers.

Reuse terms for the ESMA's documents

ESMA: Legal Notice and Data Protection, checked 13 November 2026. In the ESMA's words:

Reproduction of all information on this site (ESMA Library) is authorised except as otherwise stated, provided the source is acknowledged [...] if the original material is transformed [...] this must be stated explicitly.
Can others share copies?
Allowed with conditions.
Conditions
Credit: acknowledge ESMA as the source. If the material is sold in any medium, the publisher must tell buyers it is free on the ESMA website. If the material is transformed (for example summarised or translated) and republished, this must be stated explicitly through ESMA's own disclaimer wording. ESMA's logo and other images may not be used without prior permission, except when reproducing ESMA material that contains them. Where copyright vests in a third party, permission must come from that copyright holder, not ESMA.
What the library does
Links each document on the regulator's own site, with its size and SHA-256 fingerprint so a change can be spotted. Documents are never hosted on line4.ai.

Notice the ESMA's terms ask for: Source: European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), https://www.esma.europa.eu. The plain-English summaries are Line4's own; ESMA does not endorse this library.

What could not be verified

Said plainly, so nobody relies on a fact the sources do not give.

  • AIFMD Annex IV's and MMFR Article 37's reporting frequency, deadline and file format are not stated on ESMA's AIFMD Reporting and MMFR Reporting hub pages; the detailed guidelines and the Commission Implementing Regulation that would confirm them were not independently fetched this session.
  • CSDR reporting and SSR (short-selling) reporting, both named on ESMA's Data Reporting hub page, were not read this session and are not covered on this page.
  • The exact number of validation rules for EMIR, SFTR and MiFIR transaction reporting is not stated as a single count on the pages read; the rules are described in prose and in separate validation-rule documents, not counted here.
  • ESMA's logo and image-use rules, and the exact meaning of 'authorised except as otherwise stated' for material on pages not read this session, were not checked beyond the Legal Notice's own wording.

Sources

Knowing exactly what is collected, in what format and under which rules is the first step to real-time supervision. See every regulator in the regulatory returns library.

Line4's own text, and the way Line4 has collected and arranged these records, are free to reuse under CC BY 4.0. Please credit: “Source: Line4 regulatory submissions library (CC BY 4.0), https://www.line4.ai”. The facts themselves belong to no one. The regulators' document titles, template names, quoted terms and documents belong to them and are not covered by this licence: see ESMA's reuse terms. This describes what regulators publish. It is not legal or regulatory advice: always rely on the regulator's own text. Not affiliated with or endorsed by any regulator.

Last checked 13 November 2026.