ESEF Reporting in Norway for FY2026: Taxonomy Changes and Finanstilsynet’s Focus Areas 

In short: For financial years starting on or after 1 January 2026, Norwegian listed companies must tag their IFRS consolidated accounts using the 2025 ESEF taxonomy and an updated list of notes disclosures. Finanstilsynet checks ESEF compliance every year, and its reviews keep finding avoidable tagging and filing errors. Companies that update their process before year-end close will avoid a difficult spring. 

Who must file ESEF reports in Norway? 

ESEF applies to issuers on a regulated market with Norway as their home state. In practice, that means companies listed on Euronext Oslo Børs and Euronext Expand. Companies listed only on Euronext Growth are not in scope. 

Norway applies ESEF through the EEA Agreement. Two bodies are involved: 

• Finanstilsynet (the Financial Supervisory Authority of Norway) is the regulator and supervises compliance. 
• Oslo Børs, through NewsWeb, is the officially appointed mechanism (OAM). The annual financial report is filed and stored there. 

An annual report published only as a PDF does not meet the requirement. The company’s auditor must also confirm that the ESEF tagging is correct. 

What changes in ESEF reporting for FY2026? 

On 18 March 2026, the EU published Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/283, which updates the ESEF rules in three ways: 

1. New base taxonomy. Issuers must use the 2025 ESEF taxonomy, which reflects the introduction of IFRS 18. 
2. Revised list of notes disclosures. The list of notes elements that must be tagged has been updated. 
3. Two versions of that list. One applies to reporting under IAS 1. The other applies to the new IFRS 18, Presentation and Disclosure in Financial Statements, which replaces IAS 1 and takes effect on 1 January 2027. 

These changes apply to financial years beginning on or after 1 January 2026, so Norwegian issuers with a calendar financial year will use them in the annual reports they publish in spring 2027. Early application is permitted. Finanstilsynet has passed on ESMA’s advice to review the taxonomy changes and update reporting systems well before the 2026 reporting year. 

If your current tagging tool or provider has not moved to the 2025 taxonomy, it should be your first question this quarter. 

What does Finanstilsynet check in ESEF reports? 

Finanstilsynet has included ESEF in its review priorities every year since ESEF reporting began with the 2021 annual reports. In 2024 they wrote to 15 companies whose annual reports did not meet ESEF’s technical requirements. They also ran a technical validation of every in-scope company’s ESEF filing. 

It also expects the ESEF report to be approved by the board as part of its work on the annual accounts. ESEF is a governance issue, not only a formatting task. 

Errors Finanstilsynet has flagged include: 

• Unnecessary extensions. Companies create custom elements because they didn’t review the full IFRS taxonomy before tagging. 
• Wrong elements in the cash flow statement. Choosing the correct taxonomy element here is a stated focus for the 2025 annual reports. 
• Sign, unit and scaling errors. These include incorrect signs and inconsistent use of units such as TNOK and MNOK. 
• Calculation and structure inconsistencies. Subtotals and totals that don’t add up, or tagging that differs between the primary statements and the notes. 
• Filing gaps. These include annual reports not published in XHTML, untagged IFRS consolidated accounts, missing auditor’s reports, and ZIP packages containing PDF or Excel files that machines can’t read. 

FY2026 ESEF readiness checklist for Norwegian issuers 

• Confirm your tagging software or provider supports the 2025 ESEF taxonomy. 
• Decide whether you will early-adopt IFRS 18, and use the matching notes list. 
• Review last year’s extensions and replace any that now have a standard element. 
• Check signs, units and scaling in the primary statements, starting with the cash flow statement. 
• Validate the full ESEF package before filing, not only the financial statements. 
• Plan time for auditor review of the tagging and for board approval. 
• File one clearly labelled official version, together with the auditor’s report, on NewsWeb.