EMIR Active Account Reporting: CSSF’s Expected 31 July Filing

Luxembourg counterparties that clear euro or Polish zloty interest rate derivatives face their first round of EMIR active account reporting around the end of this month. ESMA’s supervisory guidance sets the first report under Article 7b of the European Market Infrastructure Regulation for 31 July 2026, covering the stretch from 25 June 2025, when the active account requirement became applicable, to 30 June 2026, a date this note reconciles against the underlying regulatory technical standard further down because the two do not obviously agree. On 3 July 2026 the CSSF published a dedicated page for that submission and pointed in-scope financial and non-financial counterparties to its eDesk portal.

The report is the reporting leg of the active account requirement that EMIR 3 added to the regulation. It asks a counterparty to do two separate things in one filing: quantify its clearing activity in the derivative categories that fall inside the requirement, and demonstrate to the supervisor that the active account it holds at an EU central counterparty is genuinely operational. A firm that has treated its active account as an account-opening formality now has to prove to the CSSF that the account actually works.

This operator’s note walks through what Article 7b requires, who owes the report, how the report reaches the CSSF, and the specific checks worth running before the expected 31 July filing window closes.

Related reading: EMIR 3 clearing obligation thresholds and the active account scope.

The dates that drive the first filing

The active account requirement has been building since the end of 2024, and the calendar matters more than any single provision because the deadline is what makes the topic live right now. The operative dates:

• 24 December 2024: EMIR 3, Regulation (EU) 2024/2987, entered into force.
• 25 June 2025: ESMA uses this as the start of the first Article 7b reporting reference period. Separately, Article 7a(1) requires a counterparty that becomes subject to the active account obligation to notify both ESMA and its relevant competent authority (the CSSF, for Luxembourg entities) of that fact and to establish the account within six months; counterparties already subject to the clearing obligation and over threshold on 24 December 2024 owed that notification from EMIR 3’s entry into force.
• 6 February 2026: Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/305, the regulatory technical standards on the operational conditions, the representativeness obligation and the reporting requirements, was published in the Official Journal; it entered into force on 26 February 2026.
• 13 April 2026: ESMA released the reporting templates and instructions that standardise the submission across the Union.
• 3 July 2026: the CSSF published its Article 7b active account reporting page for Luxembourg counterparties.
• 31 July 2026: the date ESMA’s guidance names for the first report, covering 25 June 2025 to 30 June 2026 (see the reconciliation immediately below on how this squares with the delegated regulation’s own first-submission rule).
• 31 January and 31 July each year after the first submission: the report recurs on a six-month cycle, each covering a twelve-month reference period.

The 31 July 2026 date is worth pausing on, because it does not sit comfortably next to the regulatory technical standard behind it. ESMA’s 13 April 2026 release and Malta’s MFSA circular both state the first submission as due 31 July 2026, covering 25 June 2025 to 30 June 2026. Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/305 frames the first submission differently: Article 10(2) sets it on the first 31 January/31 July reporting date falling no earlier than six months from the RTS’s own entry into force on 26 February 2026, covering the period from that entry-into-force date to the reporting date. Six months from 26 February 2026 is 26 August 2026, and the first 31 January/31 July date on or after that is 31 January 2027, not 31 July 2026; a corrigendum published 21 April 2026 corrected an unrelated Annex II labelling error and left Article 10 untouched. Luxembourg counterparties should treat 31 July 2026 as the CSSF and ESMA supervisory filing date, while noting that Article 10(2) of the RTS reads differently. Entity-specific uncertainty should be escalated to the CSSF, but the legal-reading point should not be used to delay a Luxembourg submission. On the CSSF/ESMA timetable, the first report reaches back to 25 June 2025, before the templates were released in April 2026; counterparties that did not keep clean records of their in-scope clearing volumes from mid-2025 onward have reconstruction work to do before they can populate the return.

Two obligations sit inside a single Article 7b report

Article 7b of EMIR is headed “Monitoring of the active account obligation”. It requires a financial counterparty or non-financial counterparty subject to the active account requirement to calculate its activities and risk exposures in the in-scope derivative categories and to report every six months to its competent authority the information needed to assess compliance. The competent authority then transmits that information to ESMA without undue delay.

The provision has a second limb that is easy to miss. The report must also include a demonstration to the competent authority that the legal documentation, IT connectivity and internal processes associated with the active account are in place. So the return does two jobs. It carries the aggregated activity data, and it is the point at which a counterparty evidences that the operational conditions in Article 7a are met. Where a firm has its clearing numbers ready but has never assembled the account documentation into something a supervisor can review, the operational limb is where the work sits.

There is a further reporting obligation for counterparties that keep a foot in both camps. Under Article 7b(2), a counterparty that holds accounts at a Tier 2 third-country CCP for the same in-scope contracts, alongside its EU active account, has to report every six months on the resources and systems it maintains so that the account could absorb large volumes at short notice. That is the Article 7a(3)(b) condition, and the regulation singles it out for firms that still clear the bulk of their book abroad.

Who has to file, and the scope check to run first

The population is narrower than “anyone who clears derivatives”. The active account requirement bites on financial and non-financial counterparties that are subject to the clearing obligation and that exceed the clearing thresholds in the categories of contracts the requirement covers: interest rate derivatives denominated in euro or Polish zloty, and short-term interest rate derivatives denominated in euro, cleared at a clearing service of substantial systemic importance. Those services are the ones offered by the Tier 2 third-country CCPs the regulation is designed to draw activity away from.

A common scoping mistake is to read the requirement off the wrong trigger. Scope depends on being subject to the clearing obligation and breaching the relevant clearing thresholds, not on merely holding an account at a Tier 2 CCP. A Luxembourg alternative investment fund manager running a modest euro rates book that stays under the clearing thresholds is outside the requirement, and owes no Article 7b report, however its clearing is routed. A bank treasury that clears well above the thresholds in euro-denominated swaps is inside it, and owes the report even if it opened its EU active account only to comply.

The scope test is a positions test, run entity by entity and, where relevant, at group level. If a firm has not confirmed in writing whether it sits above or below the clearing thresholds in the in-scope classes, that confirmation is the first thing to produce, because it decides whether the active account reporting obligation applies at all. Our guide to the EMIR 3 clearing thresholds sets out how the categories map to the clearing obligation.

How EMIR active account reporting reaches the CSSF

The first thing I check on any new EMIR return is which authority actually receives it, and the active account report is a good example of why that habit pays off. ESMA built the templates and will end up with the data, but the report is filed to the competent authority, which for Luxembourg credit institutions, investment firms and investment fund managers is the CSSF. The CSSF receives the submission and forwards it to ESMA. A firm that tries to route the return to ESMA directly, on the logic that ESMA owns the templates, files it to the wrong place.

That is the practical significance of the CSSF’s 3 July 2026 page. It confirms the Luxembourg channel and points counterparties to eDesk, the CSSF’s electronic submission platform, as the route for the filing. Reporting officers should confirm the exact eDesk procedure and any entity-specific steps on the CSSF page itself before they build the submission, because the platform mechanics for a new return are the kind of detail that changes late. The page is addressed to CSSF-supervised entities; a Luxembourg insurance undertaking in scope would look to its own sectoral supervisor as EMIR competent authority for this filing.

The reporting relationship also has teeth beyond the twice-yearly rhythm. Article 7b(3) lets the competent authority require more frequent reporting where the information filed suggests a counterparty has not taken sufficient steps to meet the requirement. A firm whose first report reads as thin, or whose operational evidence does not hold together, can find the CSSF asking for the return more often than every six months.

What goes in the templates: reading ESMA’s April 2026 forms correctly

ESMA published the Article 7b reporting templates and instructions on 13 April 2026. The reporting package is not limited to two Annex II templates. ESMA describes four CSV templates covering counterparty information, activities and risk exposures, compliance with the representativeness obligation, and the declaration on operational conditions.

The first two templates align with Annex II of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/305: Table 1 captures counterparty information, and Table 2 captures activities and risk exposures, including the category and CCP breakdown. The representativeness template aligns with Annex III, while the operational declaration reflects the Article 8 reporting requirement. Filers should therefore build the return as a four-template package, not as a two-template Annex II exercise.

The subsidiary dimension attaches to the activities data, not the counterparty data. Under Article 7(2) of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/305, the subsidiary-level reporting requirement applies to Table 2. A group filing under consolidated supervision that reports its subsidiaries only in the counterparty table, and stops there, has missed where the delegated regulation puts the subsidiary breakdown. The templates draw on the trade data a firm already reports; Article 7b(1) directs counterparties to use the information reported under Article 9 where relevant, so the active account return should reconcile to the firm’s EMIR trade reporting instead of restating it from a separate source.

Representativeness: the EUR 6 billion line and the subcategory counts

Representativeness is the part of the requirement that decides whether a counterparty must actually clear a minimum spread of trades through its EU active account, and it turns on a single figure. Where a counterparty’s outstanding notional in the in-scope contracts exceeds EUR 6 billion, the representativeness obligation applies. Below EUR 6 billion, the counterparty is exempt from representativeness. That exemption is often over-read as switching off the whole active account requirement, but it does not by itself do so; a sub-threshold counterparty still holds the active account and still files the Article 7b(1) report. Separately, Article 7a(5) exempts counterparties that clear at least 85% of the relevant derivative contracts at an EU CCP from the operational conditions in Article 7a(3)(a) to (c), their annual stress-testing, and the additional Article 7b(2) report.

For counterparties above the line, the delegated regulation sets the structure of what representative means. ESMA selects the derivative classes and, within each, the most relevant subcategories, built from a combination of size and maturity. The counts differ by product family: three classes of euro OTC interest rate derivatives, each with five most relevant subcategories; two classes of Polish zloty OTC interest rate derivatives, each with one subcategory; and two classes of euro short-term interest rate derivatives, each with four subcategories. A common error is to carry a flat “five subcategories per class” assumption across the whole return. That is right only for the euro OTC classes.

The counterparty then has to clear at least five trades in each relevant subcategory over the reference period, measured on an annual average basis, so competent authorities look at the total across a year instead of a single snapshot. There is a single scaled-down route, designed with the concentrated trading pattern of Union pension scheme arrangements in mind: where the ordinary five-trades-per-subcategory count would exceed half of a counterparty’s total trades over the preceding twelve months, clearing one trade in each of the most relevant subcategories per reference period is enough instead of five.

The reference period is calibrated to portfolio size for the euro classes only. For the euro OTC interest rate derivative classes, and for short-term contracts referencing Euribor, it runs to at least six months for counterparties with less than EUR 100 billion outstanding in the in-scope contracts, and to at least one month for counterparties above EUR 100 billion. Polish zloty OTC interest rate derivatives are the exception: the delegated regulation sets a flat twelve-month reference period there regardless of portfolio size. Within the short-term rate classes, the windows differ again by benchmark: Euribor-referenced contracts sit on shorter periods that track the euro OTC classes, while contracts referencing the euro short-term rate use longer windows. Those windows and the trade-size ranges are specified per class in the delegated regulation and the ESMA active account reporting templates, so representativeness has to be assessed class by class rather than portfolio-wide.

Evidencing that the account is genuinely usable

The operational conditions live in Article 7a(3), and the Article 7b report is where a counterparty stands behind them. The four conditions are that the account is permanently functional, with legal documentation, IT connectivity and internal processes in place; that the counterparty has the systems and resources to use the account at short notice for large volumes; that all new in-scope trades can be cleared in the account at all times; and, for counterparties above the representativeness line, that the trades cleared are representative of the in-scope contracts.

Two operational points tend to catch firms out. First, compliance with the functional, capacity and clearability conditions has to be stress-tested at least once a year under Article 7a(4), through technical and functional tests of IT connectivity with the CCP or with the clearing members and clients that provide the clearing route. A firm that opened an active account and never ran a connectivity test has no evidence to offer against the annual stress-test expectation. Broader clearing resilience exercises give a sense of what a real test looks like; our note on the ESMA CCP stress test covers the supervisory end of the same discipline.

Second, much of the operational evidence can be assembled from a firm’s normal onboarding and due-diligence work. The delegated regulation expects counterparties to document their compliance with the operational conditions, directly or through their clearing members, as part of the checks they already run when opening clearing accounts. The task ahead of the first filing window is less about generating new artefacts than about pulling the account documentation, the connectivity test records and the internal-process descriptions into a form the CSSF can review.

What non-compliance triggers under the regulation

The active account requirement comes with a defined enforcement mechanism. Article 7a(9) applies where a financial or non-financial counterparty breaches its obligations under Article 7a, including the operational criteria and the representativeness obligation. The periodic penalty payment must be effective and proportionate, may not exceed 3% of average daily turnover in the preceding business year, is imposed for each day of delay from the date set in the competent authority’s decision, and may run for up to six months before review. Do not read that ceiling as a standalone tariff for any late or incomplete Article 7b submission; late, incomplete or weak reporting should be assessed against Article 7b(3), Article 12 and the competent authority’s sectoral supervisory powers.

Alongside the penalty route, Article 7b(3) gives the CSSF the softer but more immediate lever of more frequent reporting for counterparties whose filings suggest insufficient steps have been taken. In supervisory terms, a weak first report does not stay a one-off; it can reset the reporting rhythm for the firm.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the first active account report really due on 31 July 2026, and what period does it cover?

ESMA’s 13 April 2026 templates release and Malta’s MFSA circular both say yes: the first submission is expected on 31 July 2026, covering 25 June 2025, when the active account requirement became applicable, to 30 June 2026. The regulatory technical standard behind the requirement, Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/305 Article 10(2), frames the first submission differently, however: the first reporting date falling no earlier than six months from the RTS’s 26 February 2026 entry into force, which computes to 31 January 2027 rather than 31 July 2026. Confirm the operative first-submission date with the CSSF before you build the return. After the first filing, the report recurs on 31 January and 31 July each year regardless, with each submission covering a twelve-month reference period, and the long first-period reconstruction back to mid-2025 is worth starting now rather than waiting for certainty on the exact filing date.

Do we file to the CSSF or to ESMA?

To the CSSF. Under Article 7b the report goes to the competent authority, which for CSSF-supervised Luxembourg counterparties is the CSSF, through its eDesk portal. The CSSF then transmits the information to ESMA. ESMA owns the templates but is not the point of submission for a Luxembourg filer.

Our outstanding notional in the in-scope contracts is under EUR 6 billion. Are we exempt from the whole requirement?

No. Below EUR 6 billion a counterparty is exempt from the representativeness obligation, meaning it does not have to clear a minimum spread of trades through the EU active account. That threshold does not by itself remove the active-account holding requirement or Article 7b(1) reporting. Check separately whether the Article 7a(5) 85% EU-CCP exemption applies, because that exemption removes the operational conditions in Article 7a(3)(a) to (c), their annual stress-testing, and the additional Article 7b(2) report.

How many subcategories do we report per class?

It depends on the product family. Euro OTC interest rate derivative classes have five most relevant subcategories each, euro short-term interest rate derivative classes have four each, and Polish zloty OTC interest rate derivative classes have one each. A single “five subcategories” assumption across the return is only correct for the euro OTC classes and will misstate the others.

We also keep accounts at a Tier 2 third-country CCP. Does that change our filing?

Yes. Under Article 7b(2), a counterparty that holds accounts at a Tier 2 CCP for the in-scope contracts, in addition to its EU active account, reports every six months on the resources and systems that let it use the active account at short notice for large volumes, which is the Article 7a(3)(b) condition. That is an additional element on top of the standard activities and operational reporting.

Where does the active account data come from, and does it duplicate our EMIR trade reporting?

Article 7b(1) directs counterparties to use the information reported under Article 9 of EMIR where relevant, so the activities data should reconcile to your existing trade reporting instead of being built from a separate feed. The active account report aggregates and structures that activity by class and by CCP, and adds the operational demonstration, so it is a derived return that aggregates and structures existing activity.

What happens if the first report is late or thin?

Article 7b(3) lets the competent authority use sectoral supervisory powers, impose penalties where necessary, and require more frequent reporting where the information filed suggests that insufficient steps have been taken. The 3% periodic-penalty ceiling in Article 7a(9) applies to breaches of the Article 7a active-account obligation and delay from the date set in the competent authority’s decision, not as a standalone tariff for any late Article 7b submission.

Related Articles

• EMIR 3 Clearing Obligation Thresholds and the Active Account – how the clearing obligation and thresholds decide who is caught by the active account requirement.
• ESMA Active Account Requirement Reporting Templates – the 13 April 2026 templates and instructions and how the tables are structured.
• EMIR Reporting Explained – the Article 9 trade reporting the active account return draws on.
• ESMA CCP Stress Test: Clearing Members and Reporting Teams – the supervisory side of clearing resilience and connectivity testing.
• CSSF Reporting Calendar Q3 2026 – where the active account reporting deadline sits among the quarter’s Luxembourg returns.

Key Takeaways

• ESMA’s stated first-report date is 31 July 2026, covering 25 June 2025 to 30 June 2026, but Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/305 Article 10(2) computes the first submission as 31 January 2027 instead; confirm the operative date with the CSSF, and note that recurring reports fall on 31 January and 31 July each year regardless, each covering a twelve-month reference period.
• Luxembourg counterparties file to the CSSF through eDesk, and the CSSF forwards the data to ESMA. ESMA owns the templates but is not the submission point.
• Scope turns on being subject to the clearing obligation and exceeding the clearing thresholds in euro or Polish zloty interest rate derivatives and euro short-term interest rate derivatives. Holding a Tier 2 CCP account does not by itself put a firm in scope.
• The report has two limbs: aggregated activity and risk exposures by class and by CCP, and a demonstration that the account’s legal documentation, IT connectivity and internal processes are in place.
• Below EUR 6 billion outstanding notional the representativeness obligation falls away, but that threshold does not by itself remove the active account or Article 7b(1) report; check separately whether the Article 7a(5) 85% EU-CCP exemption removes the operational conditions, annual stress-testing and the additional Article 7b(2) report.
• Subcategory counts differ by family: five for each euro OTC class, four for each euro short-term rate class, one for each Polish zloty class.
• Operational conditions must be stress-tested at least once a year, and counterparties that also hold Tier 2 CCP accounts owe the extra Article 7b(2) report on capacity and systems.
• Article 7a(9) caps the periodic penalty payment for Article 7a breaches at 3% of average daily turnover per day of delay, up to six months; late or thin Article 7b reporting is assessed under Article 7b(3)’s sectoral supervisory powers and Article 12 penalties, and the CSSF can require more frequent reporting.

Sources and References

• Regulation (EU) 2024/2987 (EMIR 3), including Articles 7a and 7b, EUR-Lex: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32024R2987
• Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/305 (RTS on operational conditions, representativeness and reporting for the active account requirement), OJ L, 6 February 2026, EUR-Lex: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg_del/2026/305/oj/eng
• Corrigendum to Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/305, OJ L_202690289, 21 April 2026, EUR-Lex: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=OJ:L_202690289
• ESMA, “ESMA releases reporting templates and instructions for the Active Account Requirement”, 13 April 2026 (instructions ESMA12-2121844265-5312): https://www.esma.europa.eu/press-news/esma-news/esma-releases-reporting-templates-and-instructions-active-account-requirement
• ESMA, “EMIR Reporting” (Active Account Requirement reporting package: four CSV templates covering counterparty information, activities and risk exposures, representativeness and operational conditions): https://www.esma.europa.eu/data-reporting/emir-reporting
• ESMA, Final Report on the EMIR 3 Active Account Requirement, ESMA91-1505572268-4201: https://www.esma.europa.eu/sites/default/files/2025-06/ESMA91-1505572268-4201_Final_Report_on_EMIR_3_Active_Account_Requirement.pdf
• ESMA Interactive Single Rulebook, EMIR Article 7a (Active account): https://www.esma.europa.eu/publications-and-data/interactive-single-rulebook/emir/article-7a-active-account
• ESMA Interactive Single Rulebook, EMIR Article 12 (Penalties): https://www.esma.europa.eu/publications-and-data/interactive-single-rulebook/emir/article-12-penalties-0
• CSSF, “Active account reporting under Article 7b of EMIR”, published 3 July 2026: https://www.cssf.lu/en/Document/active-account-reporting-under-article-7b-of-emir/
• CSSF eDesk portal: https://edesk.apps.cssf.lu/

Before the first filing window closes

The Article 7b report rewards firms that treated the active account as a live piece of infrastructure and exposes those that opened one to tick a box. The three checks that decide how hard the deadline lands are the same three a supervisor will look for: confirm whether you are above or below the clearing thresholds and the EUR 6 billion line, reconcile your in-scope activity by class and by CCP back to your Article 9 trade data, and pull together the documentation, connectivity tests and process descriptions that show the account is usable. Get those in order and the CSSF submission is an assembly job, whichever first-submission date turns out to govern. Leave them and the first filing turns into a reconstruction exercise against a deadline you have not yet confirmed.

Last updated: July 2026

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