The European Single Electronic Format (ESEF), which will be mandatory from 2021 for the annual financial reports of listed companies (issuers) in Europe, is a challenge for more than 5000 issuers. The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) submits the ESEF technical regulation to the European Commission, which approves it and promulgates it in the Official Journal, being mandatory since then. The EU Transparency Directive is the legal framework for this model.

Technologically, ESEF involves the move to internet-oriented publication with the standard web format xhtml (instead of the classic .pdf paper-oriented), plus the standard format iXBRL to facilitate the assimilation of figures and data from financial statements directly by computers, without the need for re-keying (reliability and speed).

Open Source tool reading ESEF & iXBRL

easyREADER imports ESEF iXBRL reports (.zip .xbri .xhtml .html .htm format) and present the facts in an Excel sheet. In an extended taxonomy (as usual in ESEF), Statements/Linkbases are also presented on additional Excel sheets, as user help. easyREADER is an stand-alone executable Excel binary workbook (file type .xslb) with about four thousand lines of Open Source VBA code (macros). easyINSTANCE is a lite version (two thousand lines of code) to minimize tasks on security certification of source code, at the cost of present only the facts, but not the Statements/Linkbases.

Download easyREADER, easyINSTANCE and the Technical Reference.

Open Source tool mapping from ESEF reports to ERICA format

This mapping Excel tool has been created to harmonize and make possible the comparison of the publicly available financial statements of European non-financial listed groups in ESEF format, using to that aim ERICA, a standard European common format. It includes mapping decisions (from ESEF XBRL tags to the ERICA format) derived from the experience of the use of consolidated accounts by members of the ERICA WG.
The ERICA format (European Records of IFRS Consolidated Accounts) is managed by the ERICA WG of the European Committee of Central Balance Sheet Data Offices (ECCBSO). The tool has been created with the support of the Eurofiling Foundation and XBRL Spain.

Downloads (last update 2025-04-11):
.- Open Source Tool (using easyREADER, see description above)
.- Basic version ToolB (using lite easyINSTANCE, half lines of code)
.- User Manual (mapping tool) and Technical Reference (ESEF instance / reader)

This project started on July 5th 2021, with a public call in the event ESEF mapping challenge. The go live and final presentation was December 7th 2021 at the event Extending ESEF opportunities

View and download most of the ESEF Annual Reports at filings.xbrl.org/

FAQ downloading / running Open Source

Firewalls sometimes blocks downloads of .xlsb Excel binary workbook files. Try to download the same .xlsb Excel as .zip compressed at easyREADER.zip easyINSTANCE.zip Tool.zip ToolB.zip and then unzip and run it again. If still blocked, try it on a standalone or non-corporate PC, or send us (below) an email to use the Wetransfer service.

All the .xlsb and .zip files for download are checked as virus free in this virustotal list. A detailed (and really accurate) analysis can be obtained for free by uploading the selected file (Excel .xlsb or other) to virustotal.com for AI scanning. Virus Total is a Google subsidiary.

These .xlsb Excel workbooks runs on Windows only (including Windows on macOS), but not on macOS, Linux or other Operating Systems. If Windows asks for security permission to run Excel macros (as “all the macros may be disabled” or “blocked macros from running“), please: Open “Windows File Explorer” and select the Excel file. Press down on the right-hand button of the mouse and click on “Properties”, click on “Unblock” at the bottom-right and finally click “Apply”. Open again the Excel file.

If still in doubts, or more details about securiy, please consult the User Manual along with the Technical Reference or directly e-mail to info@eurofiling.info or info@xbrl.es

ESEF Taxonomy Illustrated

The ESEF Taxonomy Illustrated is an Excel published by the Eurofiling Foundation for each ESEF annual Taxonomy, displaying the ESEF Accounting Taxonomy’s content.
Each EU language is in one specific sheet, up to 23.
Each sheet has the Label, Type and References of each Element, organized by Statements.
The Index sheet navigiates among languages and recognizes authorship.
The layouts are inspired by the IFRS Taxonomy Illustrated, PDF version.

Download here the ESEF Taxonomy Illustrated 2024, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019 and 2017.

Author: Javier Mora. CTO, XBRL Spain, Eurofiling Board Member.

Disclaimer: The ESEF Taxonomy Illustrated is NOT an official publication of ESMA or any other Entity. As a voluntary and uncompensated open source contribution of author and publisher, IF DOWNLOADED IS AT YOUR OWN RISK ONLY.

ESEF and the 23 European languages

Was the ESEF taxonomy published in all the 23 European languages? Almost, but it’s not until 2021. While the taxonomy ESEF 2017 has published 5,157 labels for English, for the other 22 languages ESEF only has 4,610 labels. Why? Solutions? Downloads? See more here

More solutions for ESEF?

See the Eurofiling list of iXBRL solutions here.
See also the list of XBRL Europe here