ESMA publishes data for quarterly bond liquidity assessment

The quarterly liquidity assessment of bonds will be discontinued following the current publication, considering that new transparency requirements in respect to bonds will start applying from 2 March 2026. Further details are provided on the relevant webpages of the calculations. 

Bonds quarterly liquidity assessment 

ESMA has published the latest quarterly liquidity assessment for bonds available for trading on EU trading venues. For this period, there are 1,195 liquid bonds subject to MiFID II transparency requirements. 

ESMA’s liquidity assessment for bonds is based on a quarterly assessment of quantitative liquidity criteria, which includes the daily average trading activity (trades and notional amount) and the percentage of days traded per quarter. Additional data and corrections submitted to ESMA may result in further updates within the quarter, published in ESMA’s Financial Instruments Transparency System (FITRS), which shall be applicable the day following publication.   

The full list of assessed bonds is now available through FITRS in the XML files with publication date 31 October 2025 through the Register web interface.

ESMA also publishes two completeness indicators related to bond liquidity data. 

The transparency requirements for bonds deemed liquid today will exceptionally apply from 17 November to 1 March 2026. The extended application dates reflect the application of the new RTS 2 provisions (see ESMA’s public statement on the application of the revised rules on non-equity transparency). The quarterly liquidity assessment will not be performed in the future.