EUTL compliance data for reading EU ETS installation records
Read EUTL installation records by emissions year, separate annual data from cumulative balances, and interpret compliance codes against the official rules.
EUTL stands for European Union Transaction Log, the checking and recording component of the Union Registry. To read an installation's records, match the installation and the emissions year, then keep annual emissions and free allocation apart from the cumulative compliance balance and the official code. Article 5 of the Registry Regulation places EUTL inside the Union Registry and requires that database to be capable of checking and recording the processes under that regulation.
Where to find EUTL and EU registry data
Start with the European Commission's Union Registry page. Follow its link to the Union Registry public website, which the Commission identifies with the former European Union Transaction Log website. The same page confirms public access to free allocation, verified emissions and operator compliance status, and says the registry tracks allowance ownership in electronic accounts.
EUTL is part of the Union Registry, not a second current registry. Public access doesn't mean every account detail or transaction appears immediately. The Registry Regulation's Annex XIII sets what is published, and when.
For country or sector comparisons, use the EEA EU ETS data viewer. It provides aggregated emissions and allowances by country, sector and year, mainly from Union Registry data. Choose it for ETS statistics, not as a substitute for an installation's official compliance record.
How to read EU ETS verified emissions
Use this method for stationary installations. Keep aviation, shipping and Swiss-linked obligations outside it.
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Identify the installation, not just its parent company. Check country, location, permit and installation identity together, and keep those details with the extraction. Annex XIII publishes installation and account information alongside emissions and compliance data. A familiar company name can point at the wrong facility, so check the identifiers again before you treat two years as one series.
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Write down the year the verified emissions relate to. Then record the compliance assessment year and the dataset's publication or extraction date separately. These dates describe different things. Prefer an explicitly annual series. Article 31 provides for annual emissions data and allows corrections. If you only have two workbook releases, subtracting one total from the next can look like an annual figure, but a correction, a coverage change or a different calculation basis can make that shortcut wrong.
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Capture annual verified emissions and free allocation as separate measures. For surrender figures, check whether the value covers one year or a cumulative period, and keep the official symbol with its statement. Article 33 calculates the compliance status figure from all allowances surrendered for the current period, less verified emissions in that period up to and including the preceding year, plus a correction factor. For trading periods starting on 1 January 2021, that factor carries forward the compliance status figure from the last year of the previous period. But the displayed letter is not a live subtraction of this year's emissions from this year's free allocation.
What an EUTL compliance code means
For stationary installations, the ETS code comes from Annex XIII, Table XIV-I of Regulation 2019/1122. Keep the symbol with its reporting year and official statement.
| Symbol | How to read it |
|---|---|
| A | The last complete year's verified emissions are recorded and the compliance status figure is zero or positive. The official statement says allowances surrendered by 30 September are greater than or equal to verified emissions. |
| B | The last complete year's verified emissions are recorded and the compliance status figure is negative. The official statement says allowances surrendered by 30 September are lower than verified emissions. |
| C | Preceding-year verified emissions were not entered by the 30 September assessment deadline. This is not another allowance-shortfall code. |
| X | Entering verified emissions and/or surrendering was impossible by the deadline because the relevant processes were suspended for the Member State's registry. It is not a generic missing-data marker. |
Appended * | Verified emissions were estimated or corrected by the competent authority. Keep the underlying letter. The asterisk alone does not establish non-compliance. |
Read A and B with the cumulative calculation above. The current table does not define D or E, so don't assign them meanings from an assumed A to E sequence.
Why free allocation doesn't settle compliance
Free allocation and surrender are different measures. Emissions above the free allocation do not prove a surrender failure. The duty is to surrender allowances against verified emissions, as the Commission's monitoring, reporting and verification guidance explains. Check the surrender information and the official status. Article 33 includes the correction factor, so visible totals may not reproduce the symbol.
Check the reporting and publication dates
Under the current Commission guidance, operators submit verified emissions reports by 31 March of the following year. They surrender allowances by 30 September. For 2025 emissions, that means surrender by 30 September 2026.
Public display follows a separate timetable. Annex XIII provides for displaying year X's verified emissions, including corrections, from 1 September of X+1. The compliance symbol updates on 1 October and generally remains until the next annual update, subject to specified exceptions. A September release date alone doesn't establish that a download includes the October symbol refresh.
The filename will not tell you.
Save the source release and extraction date, and check the assessment year in the data.
Historical records need their own timetable. The original 2013 Registry Regulation used a 30 April surrender assessment and a 1 May symbol update. Don't apply those dates to today's installation records.
RegAffairs AI has a saved answer on reading installation compliance data.