Preamble Recitals

In order to ensure an adequate level of transparency and accountability, as well as to enable comprehensive and comparable reporting, it is necessary to lay down templates concerning the form, content and other details of the reports that providers of intermediary services must publish pursuant to Articles 15(1), 24(1) and 42(2) of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065.

In accordance with Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, and in line with the objective of establishing clear, effective, balanced and proportionate due diligence obligations for a transparent and safe online environment for providers of intermediary services, the transparency reporting obligations applied to those providers should be proportionate to their societal impact. On this basis, Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 outlines different transparency reporting obligations for providers of intermediary services, providers of hosting services, providers of online platforms, and providers of very large online platforms and very large online search engines, which are proportionate to their type and size. Article 15(2) of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 also exempts from the reporting obligation laid down in Article 15(1) of that Regulation providers of intermediary services which qualify as micro or small enterprises within the meaning of Recommendation 2003/361/EC(²) and which are not very large online platforms within the meaning of Article 33 of that Regulation.

In order to enable effective scrutiny over content moderation decisions, providers of intermediary services, providers of hosting services, providers of online platforms, providers of very large online platforms and of very large online search engines should use the templates and the instructions laid out in the Annexes to this Regulation when complying with their transparency reporting obligations pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2022/2065.

In order to facilitate compliance with providers’ transparency obligations, in particular to ensure the machine-readability and easy accessibility of the transparency reports, the publication format should be harmonised in accordance with Articles 15(3) and 24(6) of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065.

To ensure that the transparency reports are machine-readable, providers of intermediary services, providers of hosting services, providers of online platforms, and providers of very large online platforms and of very large online search engines shall publish the transparency report in an Open Document Format (ODF) CSV (comma-separated values) format. The Commission shall make available online the CSV- and XLSX-versions of the templates in Annex I.

In order to enable the comparability of the transparency reports of all providers, the reporting periods and the publication dates should be harmonised in accordance with Articles 15(3) and 24(6) of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065.

According to Article 42(1) of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, providers of very large online platforms and of very large online search engines shall report at least every six months. The start of those provider’s reporting cycle depends on the date the service has been designated as a very large online platform or as a very large online search engine. Consequently, the biannual reporting cycles of providers of very large online platforms and very large online search engines are not harmonised.

According to Article 15(1) of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, providers of intermediary services, of hosting services, and of online platforms shall report annually, starting from 17 February 2024, the date of full entry of application of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065. The biannual reporting cycles of providers of very large online platforms and of very large online search engines are not aligned with the annual reporting cycles of providers of intermediary services, of hosting services, and of online platforms.

For providers of intermediary services, of hosting services, and of online platforms, the annual reporting cycle pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 shall be aligned with the harmonised reporting cycles in this Regulation. Therefore, the second reporting cycle pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, starting latest on 17 February 2025, shall cover the period until 31 December 2025. Providers of intermediary services, of hosting services, and of online platforms, shall follow the templates set out in Annex I to this Regulation as of 1 July 2025. The first full harmonised reporting cycle covers 1 January 2026 until 31 December 2026.

For providers of very large online platforms and of very large online search engines, the first reporting cycle following the templates set out in Annex I to this Regulation shall cover the period 1 July until 31 December 2025.

Providers of intermediary services, providers of hosting services, providers of online platforms, providers of very large online platforms and providers of very large online search engines are encouraged to conform their transparency reports to the templates set out in Annex I to this Regulation following the entry into force of this Regulation.

To facilitate the Commission’s evaluation of the potential effect of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 in accordance with Article 91 of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, providers of intermediary services, providers of hosting services, providers of online platforms, and providers of very large online platforms and very large online search engines shall retain the transparency reports for a minimum period of at least five years after publication.

Providers of intermediary services, providers of hosting services, providers of online platforms, and providers of very large online platforms and very large online search engines can publish updated versions of previously published transparency reports for the purpose of rectifying inconsistencies, errors, or changes in the methodology applied to calculate reported figures. Versions of a transparency report shall be explicitly marked to allow for easy recognition of the version and date of the transparency report.

To ensure public access to historical transparency reports, the transparency reports, including all published versions, shall at least remain publicly accessible during the five-year retention period,