ESEF applies to all companies listed on EU regulated markets. The companies that published their annual report under consolidated IFRS have to report with iXBRL format while the companies that report with non IFRS consolidated financial statements reports with the XML format.
The ESEF Taxonomy is produced by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) and is based on the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Taxonomy.
The purpose of ESEF
ESEF aims to enhance transparency, accessibility, and comparability of financial information in the EU by requiring companies to submit their financial statements in a structured format that can be easily read and analysed by both humans and machines.
ESEF and block tagging
For financial years beginning on or after 1 January 2022, issuers must “block tag” the notes to their financial statement, which was a major addition to ESEF requirements.
In a block tag, the content of an entire section of a report is tagged as a single fact. The tag may include text, numerical values, tables, and other data. The phrase “block tag” refers to the fact that the whole disclosure is tagged as a single block — no numbers or tables within the note are individually tagged.