Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/2835 of 4 November 2024 laying down templates concerning the transparency reporting obligations of providers of intermediary services and of providers of online platforms under Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 of the European Parliament and of the Council

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION,

Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,

Having regard to Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 October 2022 on a Single Market for Digital Services and amending Directive 2000/31/EC (Digital Services Act) ¹, and in particular Articles 15(3) and 24(6) thereof,

After consulting the Digital Services Committee in accordance with Article 88(1) of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065,

Whereas:

• (1) 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.

• (2) 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.

• (3) 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.

• (4) 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.

• (5) 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.

• (6) 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.

• (7) 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.

• (8) 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.

• (9) 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.

• (10) 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.

• (11) 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.

• (12) 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.

• (13) 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.

• (14) 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,

HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION:

Article 1

Templates for the transparency reports

Article 2

Reporting period

Article 3

Retention period

Article 4

Entry into force

This Regulation shall enter into force on the twentieth day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.

This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.

Done at Brussels, 4 November 2024.

For the Commission

The President

Ursula VON DER LEYEN

ANNEX I

Templates for providers of intermediary services, hosting services, online platforms, very large online platforms and of very large online search engines

PART I

GENERAL REMARKS

Pursuant to Article 1(1) of this Regulation, 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 shall fill in the templates in the CSV- and XLSX-version of this Annex.

This Annex contains two templates:

• (1) ‘Quantitative Template’, consisting of eight sections, and

• (2) ‘Qualitative Template’, consisting of one section.

Annex II contains general instructions on the functioning of the templates and detailed instructions to fill out both templates. The templates in this Annex shall be filled out in accordance with those instructions. The tables included in this Annex are used only for illustrative purposes. The CSV- and XLSX-version of this Annex shall be used to fulfil the reporting obligations in Articles 15, 24 and 42 of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065. The CSV- and XLSX-versions of this Annex can be accessed at https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/dsa-brings-transparency.

PART II

TEMPLATES

1. QUANTITATIVE TEMPLATE

1.1.   Report identification

1.2.   Article 15(1)(a). Member State orders

1.2.1.   Member State orders to act against illegal content

1.2.2.   Member State orders to provide information

1.2.3.   Contextual information on orders

1.3.   Article 15(1)(b). Notices submitted in accordance with article 16 of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065

1.3.1.   Contextual information on notices

1.4.   Article 15(1)(c). Meaningful and comprehensible information on own-initiative content moderation

1.5.   Articles 15(1)(d), 24(1)(a) and 24(1)(b)

1.5.1.   Internal complaints mechanism, out-of-court dispute settlement bodies and suspensions imposed on repeated offenders

1.6.   Article 15(1)(b)(c)(e) and Article 42(2)(c). Use of automated means for content moderation and indicators of accuracy

1.7.   Articles 42(2)(a) and 42(2)(b). Human resources dedicated to content moderation

1.8.   Article 42(3). Average monthly active recipients of the service for each Member State

2. QUALITATIVE TEMPLATE

ANNEX II

Instructions for filling in the transparency reports templates under Annex I

PART I

GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS

This Annex provides instructions for completing the transparency report templates set out in Annex I in accordance with Articles 15, 24 and 42 of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065.

Pursuant to Article 1 of this Regulation, 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 shall fill in the templates in Annex I.

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 shall publish one transparency report in accordance with the templates in Annex I per service that it offers.

1. STRUCTURE OF THE TRANSPARENCY REPORT TEMPLATES

The information in the transparency report shall be provided by completing the following templates set out in Annex I:

• (1) ‘Quantitative Template’, which is to be used to provide quantitative machine-readable information on content moderation, in accordance with the requirements under Articles 15, 24 and 42 of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065.

• (2) ‘Qualitative Template’, which is to be used to provide qualitative meaningful information on content moderation, in accordance with the requirements under Articles 15, 24 and 42 of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065.

The transparency reports will be considered incomplete if they omit one of the two templates, both templates, or parts of them without a specific and objective reason being provided.

Pursuant to Articles 15, 24 and 42 of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, the transparency reporting obligations for 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 not identical. Therefore, not all sections of the templates apply to all types of service providers. The first column in the templates indicates the type of service providers to which the corresponding requirement is applicable.

In case a reporting requirement does not apply to the provider, the corresponding row should be left blank. Where a row applies to a provider, but the result of that practice is zero, the provider shall indicate this by filling out ‘0’ in the value field. For example, where an intermediary service provider has not received any orders from a specific Member State for Category 1 ‘Animal welfare’ then that row shall be marked as ‘0’, because the provider could have theoretically received such an order during the reporting period. If an intermediary service provider does not impose monetary restrictions on its service, then the number of ‘Monetary restriction Suspension’, ‘Monetary restriction Termination’, and ‘Monetary restriction Other’ shall be left blank, because the provider could never have imposed these restrictions during the reporting period.

The reporting obligations pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 are without prejudice to supplementary voluntary transparency reporting efforts. Providers of intermediary services, of hosting services, of online platforms, of very large online platforms and of very large search engines are encouraged to further break down the information included in the report and to include, in addition to the mandatory quantitative and qualitative templates, an additional document outlining methodological choices, contextual information and an easily comprehensible summary.

2. TIMELINE OF THE TRANSPARENCY REPORTS

Following the entry into force of this Regulation, in accordance with Article 2 of this Regulation, providers of intermediary services, providers of hosting services, providers of online platforms, and providers of very large online platforms or of very large online search engines shall publish their transparency reports at the latest by two months from the date of the conclusion of each reporting period. Such reports shall include information on any content moderation in which they have engaged during the relevant reporting period as defined in Article 2.

3. TRANSITION PERIOD

A transition period following the full entry into application of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 on 17 February 2024 is necessary to align the reporting timelines of providers of intermediary services, providers of hosting services and providers of online platforms with the timelines of providers of very large online platforms and of very large online search engines. The transition period ends on 31 December 2025. As of 1 January 2026, all providers of intermediary services shall follow the reporting periods outlined in Article 2 of this Regulation.

For providers of intermediary services, of hosting services, and of online platforms, the first reporting cycle following the full entry into application date of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 ends with the publication of their first annual transparency report pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 and latest on 16 February 2025. The second reporting cycle is a transitional reporting cycle. The transitional reporting cycle is shortened and covers the period until 31 December 2025. The start of the transitional reporting cycle depends on the data included in the first reporting cycle. For example, if a provider of an intermediary service covers the period 17 February 2024 – 31 January 2025 in their first reporting cycle, their transitional reporting cycle covers 1 February 2025 – 31 December 2025.

Providers of intermediary services, of hosting services and of online platforms shall collect information in compliance with this Regulation and the instruction outlined in this Annex on any content moderation in which they have engaged as of 1 July 2025. For the transitional reporting cycle, that means that the reporting for the period as of latest 17 February 2025 until 30 June 2025 is pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 and the reporting for the period 1 July 2025 – 31 December 2025 must follow the templates set out in Annex I to this Regulation. For example, the provider mentioned above with a transitional reporting cycle covering the period 1 February 2025 – 31 December 2025 shall use the templates set out in Annex I for the period 1 July 2025 – 31 December 2025. For the period 1 February 2025 – 30 June 2025, the provider is encouraged to use the templates pursuant to this Regulation but is not obliged to do so. The reporting for the period 1 February 2025 – 30 June 2025 shall be pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2022/2065.

For the transitional reporting cycle, the deadline for publication set out in Article 2 to this Regulation applies. The first full annual reporting cycle of providers of intermediary services, of hosting services, and of online platform that must follow the templates set out in Annex I to this Regulation shall cover the period 1 January until 31 December 2026.

Following the entry into force of this Regulation, providers of very large online platforms and providers of very large online search engines shall collect information in compliance with the instructions outlined in this Annex on any content moderation in which they have engaged as of 1 July 2025. The first reporting cycle of providers of very large online platforms and of very large online search engines that must follow the templates set out in Annex I to this Regulation shall cover the period 1 July until 31 December 2025.

4. FORMAT OF THE TRANSPARENCY REPORTS

In accordance with Article 15(1) of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, transparency reports shall be made publicly available in a machine-readable format and in an easily accessible manner, to ensure accountability, comparability and harmonization at Union level.

To achieve the machine-readability objective, 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 shall publish the filled-in templates provided by this Regulation in an Open Document Format (ODF) CSV (comma-separated values) format. The templates must comply with the CSV standard RFC 4180 and must use UTF-8 (Unicode Transformation Format – 8-bit) encoding. The Commission makes available online the CSV- and XLSX-versions of the templates in this Annex.

To ensure comparability and harmonisation at Union level, 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 shall report integer numbers when dealing with counting indicators (such as the number of moderators per official language, number of notices received, number of notices actioned, monthly active recipients of the service). All the indicators reporting a percentage shall be reported as floating numbers in the [0,1] interval. All the indicators on median time, shall be indicated in hours.

5. RETENTION PERIOD AND VERSIONING

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 shall retain the transparency reports for at least five years after their publication. During this five-year period, the transparency reports shall remain publicly available.

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 may publish updated versions of prior published transparency reports for the purpose of rectifying inaccuracies, errors, or changes in the methodology applied to calculate reported figures. In case a provider wishes to publish an updated version, it shall clearly mark that this version is an updated version of a previously published transparency report, highlight the changes made, provide a clear description of the reasons to update the previously published transparency report and the methodology applied to rectify the inconsistencies or errors, and indicate the date on which the changes were made.

All versions of a transparency report shall remain publicly available for the entire duration of the retention period and shall be explicitly marked to allow for easy recognition of the version and the date of the transparency report.

6. LINGUISTIC EXPERTISE

Pursuant to Article 42(2)(b) of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, providers of very large online platforms shall specify the linguistic expertise of the persons carrying out activities dedicated to content moderation. When reporting on persons with ‘linguistic expertise’ in the transparency reports in accordance with this Regulation, providers of very large online platforms shall assess the requirement in line with the language proficiency levels of the ‘Common European Framework of Reference for Languages’ (CEFR). The CEFR supports learning and teaching of all languages as a transparent, coherent and comprehensive reference instrument to assess and compare competence levels. ³ Self-assessment grids that illustrate the levels of proficiency described in the CEFR are available online.

To fulfil the aim of transparency sought by Article 42(2)(b) of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, it is sufficient that providers of very large online platforms specify the number of persons that have sufficient linguistic expertise to carry out their activities related to content moderation. The minimum threshold for ‘sufficient linguistic expertise’ for content moderation corresponds to CEFR-B2 in the category ‘Understanding’.

7. CATEGORIES OF ILLEGAL AND INCOMPATIBLE CONTENT

Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 requires the data to be provided in accordance with Articles 15(1)(a) and 15(1)(b) to be categorised by the type of (alleged) illegal content concerned. For orders that are reported pursuant to Article 15(1)(a), the indicated category of illegality in the transparency report shall correspond to the reference to one or more specific provisions of Union law or national law in compliance with Union law indicated by the relevant national judicial or administrative authorities in the order. For notices that are reported pursuant to Article 15(1)(b), the indicated category of illegality in the transparency report shall correspond to the explanation of the reasons why the individual or entity submitting a notice alleges the information to be illegal.

The data provided in accordance with Article 15(1)(c) shall be categorised by the type of illegal content or violation of the terms and conditions of the service provider. For own-initiative content moderation that are reported pursuant to Article 15(1)(c), the indicated category of illegality or the violation of the terms and conditions of the service provider in the transparency report shall correspond to the ground on which the service provider has taken the decision to impose the restriction.

In accordance with the DSA Transparency Database ⁴, the list of categories consists of a high-level classification (indicated in white) which indicates the main category. The list of high-level categories is exhaustive.

Double counts should be omitted. Where multiple high-level categories apply, the category that best covers the grounds based on which the decision was taken should be chosen. More specific categories take precedence over more generic categories. For example, a post containing incitement to violence against women should be included in Category 4e ‘Illegal incitement to violence and hatred against women’ as it is a more specific category than the general Category 6c ‘Illegal incitement to violence and hatred based on protected characteristics (hate speech)’.