The EU Benchmarks Regulation has applied to far fewer benchmarks since 1 January 2026, because Regulation (EU) 2025/914 narrows the regime to the indices that matter most to EU markets and moves supervision of third-country administrators to ESMA. For investment managers that’s largely welcome, but it also quietly changes a sentence found in almost every UCITS prospectus that references an index, and that sentence can now become inaccurate without anyone having done anything wrong.
What does the EU Benchmarks Regulation do for funds?
Most of the Benchmarks Regulation is about index providers, covering their governance, methodology and authorisation, but investment managers meet it in two places. As users, funds may only use benchmarks within the regime’s rules, and they must keep written plans for what happens if a benchmark changes materially or stops being provided.
As issuers, meanwhile, a prospectus for a UCITS or other product referencing a benchmark has to say clearly whether the benchmark’s administrator is on ESMA’s register. That requirement sits in Article 29(2), and it’s the one that shows up in fund documents.
What changed on 1 January 2026?
The scope is now much narrower, as the regime covers critical benchmarks, significant benchmarks, EU Climate Transition Benchmarks and EU Paris-aligned Benchmarks, and certain commodity benchmarks, while non-significant benchmarks fall out of the general regime.
Significance is now defined by a number, so a significant benchmark is one whose aggregate use in the EU reaches €50 billion. Administrators must monitor that, notify their supervisor (or ESMA, if they’re outside the EU) when a benchmark crosses the line, and the authority then publishes a statement saying the benchmark is significant. Authorities can also issue a notice where they have clear grounds to think the threshold has been reached.
The other changes are more specific:
- Opting in: an EU administrator whose benchmark falls out of scope can ask its supervisor to designate it as significant, after which it has to meet the full requirements for significant benchmarks.
- ESMA as the single entry point for non-EU administrators: ESMA now supervises third-country administrators seeking recognition and the EU administrators endorsing third-country benchmarks.
- A prospectus duty that follows the new scope: Article 29(2) now applies where a prospectus references a critical, significant, in-scope commodity, Climate Transition or Paris-aligned benchmark, and if a public notice warning that the benchmark doesn’t comply is added to the register, the prospectus has to say so without undue delay.
- A transition period: administrators that were on the register at the end of 2025 keep that status for nine months, until 30 September 2026, while the register is updated.
Why do prospectus register sentences go out of date?
Most prospectuses carry a sentence along the lines of “the administrator of the index is included in the register maintained by ESMA”. Under the old regime that was a compliance statement, whereas under the new one it can go out of date in either direction.
An administrator whose benchmarks are no longer in scope may lawfully drop off the register once the transition ends, which would make the sentence false even though nothing went wrong. A benchmark that crosses €50 billion of use, or is designated significant, can come back into scope and need the statement where none was required, and for a benchmark that’s out of scope altogether, the old sentence may simply no longer be needed.
Climate benchmarks deserve a separate look, because EU Climate Transition and Paris-aligned Benchmarks stay in scope regardless of size. They’re also the reference points that other rules rely on, including the exclusions in ESMA’s fund names guidelines, so for ESG funds a benchmark’s status feeds straight into naming and disclosure decisions.
The rescope also deletes the old expectation that administrators of significant benchmarks should try to offer climate benchmarks, which the regulation says proved hard to enforce.
When do the Benchmarks Regulation changes apply?
- 7 May 2025: Regulation (EU) 2025/914 is adopted
- 19 May 2025: the regulation is published in the Official Journal
- 1 October 2025: endorsement applications for third-country benchmarks received from this date are decided by ESMA rather than national authorities
- 31 December 2025: the old third-country transitional period ends
- 1 January 2026: the narrowed scope applies and ESMA takes over third-country supervision
- 30 September 2026: transitional register status ends for administrators registered at the end of 2025
What to do now
- Take an inventory of your benchmark references, listing every index named in prospectuses, KIDs, factsheets and marketing, with its administrator and whether it’s critical, significant, climate or out of scope.
- Re-check every register sentence, treating each Article 29(2) statement as live data to verify against ESMA’s register rather than text to carry forward.
- Put 30 September 2026 in the plan, because the register settles by then and it makes sense to time prospectus updates for after you know each administrator’s status.
Although this is deregulation, it does create some work, and how much depends largely on whether your benchmark data is held in one place. The practical risk lies less in the rule itself than in a sentence that nobody owns, repeated across dozens of documents, which may stop being accurate once the register changes.
At Kurtosys we think benchmark details belong in governed fund data, not in copy that gets pasted from one prospectus to the next. When the same source feeds prospectuses and other regulatory documents, factsheets, client reports and fund websites, a change in a benchmark’s status is one update with an audit trail. If you’re reviewing your benchmark disclosures this year, get in touch.
Sources: Regulation (EU) 2025/914 amending the Benchmarks Regulation (EUR-Lex), Regulation (EU) 2016/1011, Benchmarks Regulation (EUR-Lex), ESMA: benchmark administrators, ESMA benchmarks register, as at 1 February 2026.
About this article
This article reflects the position at 1 February 2026 and was checked against the primary sources available at that time. Thomas Bjerkén, our regulatory reporting and fund data specialist, joined Kurtosys after it was published and now looks after our regulatory content. Some details may have changed since it was published.
