The first annual reporting obligation under the EU Instant Payments Regulation falls on 9 April 2026, requiring all payment service providers that offer credit transfer services to submit standardized reports to their national competent authorities. The reports must detail the uptake of instant payment services, compliance with fee parity requirements, and the implementation status of verification of payee mechanisms across the institution.
Payment service providers must file in a structured XBRL CSV format developed by the European Banking Authority, adhering to standardized templates and validation rules designed to enable cross-border comparability. The first report covers the retrospective period from 26 October 2022 to 31 December 2025, capturing the full timeline from the regulation's political agreement through the implementation of both the receiving and sending mandates.
The deadline has already been postponed once. The EBA originally proposed an earlier filing date but delayed the first submission by twelve months to give institutions more time to prepare their reporting infrastructure. Despite this extension, industry readiness remains uneven. Surveys conducted by compliance technology providers suggest that approximately one-third of payment service providers consider themselves fully prepared for the filing, while the remaining two-thirds face challenges related to data extraction from legacy systems, reconciliation of historical records, and the granularity of required metrics.
National competent authorities will use the submitted data to assess whether the regulation is achieving its stated objectives of making instant payments universally available, affordable, and secure across the eurozone. Key compliance metrics include the share of instant payments as a proportion of all credit transfers, average processing times, rejection rates, and the deployment status of verification of payee services.
The reporting obligation applies to all PSPs operating within the EU that offer credit transfer services, regardless of whether they currently support instant payments. This scope means that institutions still in the process of connecting to SEPA Instant clearing infrastructure will also need to report their implementation status, creating a comprehensive picture of progress across the single market. Subsequent reports will cover each full calendar year and are due annually on the same 9 April date.