VS 2026: the EU standard for sustainability reports of small and medium-sized companies.

VS 2026 is the voluntary sustainability reporting standard for companies that do not report under CSRD. It builds on VSME, the standard EFRAG prepared for small and medium-sized companies, and was adopted by the European Commission on 3 July 2026 as Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/1560. It was published in the Official Journal on 21 September 2026 and has been in force since 24 September 2026.

The standard does not make any company a mandatory reporter and does not require external assurance. It gives banks, customers and other partners one common format, so that a company can answer their questions once instead of filling in a different questionnaire for each of them. Other legislation can still create its own obligations.

Option A is the Basic Module, B1 to B11: basis for preparation, practices and policies, energy and greenhouse gas emissions, pollution, biodiversity, water, resources and waste, the workforce, health and safety, pay and training, and corruption and bribery. A company may add selected disclosures from the Comprehensive Module, marked as additional.

Option B is the Basic Module together with the Comprehensive Module, C1 to C9: strategy and business model, practices and policies in more detail, greenhouse gas reduction targets and transition plans, climate risks, additional workforce information, human rights policies and incidents, revenues from certain sectors and the gender diversity of the governance body. A selected option is reported in its entirety; disclosures that do not apply to the company can be left out.

For a company with ten employees or fewer, the datapoints on energy and greenhouse gas emissions (B3), water (B6) and resources, circular economy and waste (B7) are voluntary. It may still report them, for example because its bank asks for its emissions.

Annex II of the regulation lists the information that companies reporting under CSRD may require for their own sustainability reporting from partners in their value chain with up to 1,000 employees on average in the preceding year. The limit applies to financial years starting on or after 1 January 2027.

For a company with ten employees or fewer the list covers nine groups of information: the chosen option and reporting basis, general company information, employees by contract type and gender, work accidents, minimum wage, collective bargaining coverage and training hours. For larger companies it covers 23 groups, adding total energy, Scope 1 and location-based Scope 2 emissions, water withdrawal, waste and recycling, circular economy principles, products, markets and business relationships, employee turnover, workforce policies, complaints mechanisms and confirmed incidents.

The list limits requests; it does not make these disclosures compulsory. Anything beyond it can only be agreed between the partners as part of their business relationship.

From the second report onwards, metrics reported before are shown together with the previous year; a metric reported for the first time needs no comparison. A datapoint that has not changed may refer to the previous report. The standard does not require reporting every year, but banks and customers usually ask for current figures annually.

• Every new reporting year starts on the VS 2026 basis; earlier years can adopt it with all data kept
• Report scope: Basic, Basic with additional disclosures, or Basic and Comprehensive
• The questionnaire decides which topics apply, including the relief for ten employees or fewer
• Disclosures requested by a bank or customer are recorded as requested
• The VSME report prints the disclosure references and ends with management's declaration of compliance
• Evidence for every figure, a change log and packages for an independent review