EU FDI screening closed 88% of 2025 cases within 15 days before the new 2028 regime

AI Summary

EU FDI screening remained fast for most notified investments in 2025: 88% of 667 cases closed within 15 days. The timing cost falls on the 12% sent to in-depth security assessment, where closing schedules lose a fixed endpoint. Notifications rose 40% from 477 in 2024, while Commission opinions stayed below 2%. Importers planning EU acquisitions or ownership restructuring should use the 15-day figure as a historical baseline before FISR applies from 17 January 2028.

What happened

The European Commission published its sixth annual report on foreign direct investment screening on 14 October 2026. The Directorate-General for Trade and Economic Security reports that EU Member States notified 667 investments to the Commission in 2025, compared with 477 in 2024. The 2025 total was 40% higher, the highest annual rise since the cooperation mechanism was introduced.

Within that larger caseload, 88% of notified cases closed within 15 days. Another 12% required an in-depth security risk assessment. Commission opinions remained rare: the Commission issued opinions in less than 2% of cases in 2025, consistent with 2024 and 2023. The annual report records performance under the existing cooperation mechanism. The incoming regime is FISR, which applies from 17 January 2028.

Foreign direct investment screening — the process through which EU Member States and the European Commission review investments from outside the EU for security and public-order risks before or around a transaction.

The reported figures break down as follows:

For the regime transition, see EU FDI screening will move to a new 2028 regime after a 40% rise in notified cases. The notification volume is analyzed in EU FDI screening: 667 notifications in 2025, 12% sent to in-depth review, new FISR applies. The escalation tail is covered in EU FDI Screening From 17 January 2028: The In-Depth Review Risk in Numbers. Year-ahead procedure is compared in EU FDI Screening 2026 Rules, Notification Volumes and 2028 Timelines for Importers.

Why now

The report gives importers a measured baseline while there is still planning time before FISR applies from 17 January 2028. What moved in 2025 was workload, not a published duty or fee. Member State notifications increased from 477 to 667. The arithmetic difference is 190 additional notifications, and 190 divided by 477 produces 0.3983, matching the reported 40% increase.

The important operational point is that speed held for most cases despite the larger workload: 88% closed within 15 days. At the same time, a 12% in-depth assessment share is large enough to require a contingency path in any acquisition timetable. The data support a two-track planning model: a fast historical track for most notified cases and an open-ended review track for escalated cases.

So what

This article contains no per-unit duty rate because the source supplies no duty, fee, or monetary charge. The cost consequence is timing risk. An importer financing an EU acquisition, ownership restructuring, or post-closing integration has to carry capital, advisory, storage, and commercial-delay costs while screening remains open. The 2025 data show where that burden concentrated.

The fast-closure group is the dominant group. At 88%, the reported benchmark is 15 days. Applying that share mechanically to 667 notifications gives 586.96 cases. Applying the 12% in-depth share gives 80.04 cases. These are arithmetic products, not published whole-case headcounts, because the reported percentages are rounded. They still show the shape of the system: most files ended quickly, while a substantial minority entered a deeper process.

The opinion group is smaller. Less than 2% of 667 gives an arithmetic boundary of 13.34 cases. With whole cases, 13 is the largest integer below that boundary. The source does not publish the exact count, so 13 is only a boundary calculation. It confirms that formal Commission opinions were rare in aggregate, not that an individual transaction can ignore that outcome.

Use the following cost structure. Let C equal the importer’s daily carrying cost and D equal the actual number of days in review. For the reported fast-closure pattern, the planning exposure is 15 × C. For an in-depth assessment, the exposure is D × C. The incremental exposure beyond the 15-day benchmark is (D − 15) × C, and the per-unit allocation is that amount divided by affected units. The source supplies no value for D, so assigning a fixed monetary amount to the in-depth group would invent a deadline and a cost.

Importers should therefore put the 15-day figure in the base closing timetable only for files expected to track the 88% pattern. Files in the 12% group need long-stop financing, flexible completion conditions, and no promised release date. “Closed” is also the report’s term; the report does not convert every closure into an approval label.

How confident

Confirmed. The European Commission report published on 14 October 2026 supplies every statistical figure in this article: 667 notifications in 2025, 477 in 2024, a 40% increase, 88% closure within 15 days, a 12% in-depth assessment share, and opinions in less than 2% of cases. The FISR application date of 17 January 2028 is stated as the incoming regime date for this analysis.

Inferred. The planning interpretation rests on that single Commission document. The usefulness of 15 days as a base-case benchmark, the two-track timetable, and the carrying-cost formulas are operational inferences, not published rules. The products 586.96, 80.04, and 13.34 result from applying rounded percentages to 667 and are not confirmed case counts. The report supplies no in-depth review duration, sector breakdown, filing threshold, fee, or prohibition rate, and none is inferred here.

What would change my mind. A corrected Commission release, a later annual report, FISR implementing measures with fixed review periods, or Member State-level duration data would change the planning model. A different 2025 closure or escalation share would change the arithmetic. Published data showing a reliable end date for in-depth assessments would also support a firmer monetary estimate than the formula used here.

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For you

• Importers signing an EU acquisition before 17 January 2028: place the 15-day fast-closure figure in the base timetable and add a separate completion condition for in-depth assessment.
• Importers restructuring EU ownership: prepare ownership, control, and security information before filing so the transaction can track the 88% fast-closure group rather than arrive incomplete during a high-volume period.
• Importers whose filing enters in-depth assessment: remove any fixed 15-day closing assumption, keep financing and completion obligations open, and calculate carrying costs using the actual review duration.
• Importers coordinating investment approval with goods arrivals: keep customs clearance planning separate from FDI screening because the 15-day figure concerns notified investments, not cargo release.

The data point

The single figure to carry into an EU investment timetable is the 2025 fast-closure rate.

FAQ

Does the 88% share mean every EU FDI filing closes by day 15?

No. The report says 88% of the 667 notified cases in 2025 closed within 15 days. The escalation group is material: 12% of notified investments required an in-depth security risk assessment. Those figures describe aggregate outcomes for one year, not a universal deadline for an individual transaction. The source also reports Commission opinions in less than 2% of cases, consistent with 2024 and 2023. Treat 15 days as the historical fast-closure benchmark, and keep a separate timetable path for escalation before FISR applies from 17 January 2028.

What does the 12% in-depth assessment share mean for a closing schedule?

It means a reported 12% of 2025 notifications entered a deeper security risk process. The annual report supplies no duration, fee, duty rate, or guaranteed end date for that process. An importer in this group cannot calculate a fixed screening cost from the supplied figures, and a 15-day closing assumption is unsupported. The practical arithmetic uses the importer’s own daily carrying cost: financing, storage, advisory fees, and delayed commercial returns multiplied by the unknown number of review days. Transaction documents should keep financing and completion obligations open until the formal screening process ends.

How should importers use the rise from 477 to 667 notifications before 2028?

Use the rise as a workload signal, not as a duty rate. The Commission reports a 40% increase between 2024 and 2025, the highest annual rise since the cooperation mechanism began. A larger caseload raises the value of early filing and complete ownership information, but the report does not link volume to a specific future processing time. The 88% share shows most 2025 cases still closed within 15 days. At the same time, the 12% escalation share requires a contingency plan. Importers with EU acquisitions or ownership restructuring should align the filing plan with the FISR application date of 17 January 2028.

How we calculated this

2024 notifications = 477
2025 notifications = 667

additional notifications = 667 - 477 = 190
growth check = 190 / 477 = 0.3983, reported by the source as 40%

fast-closure mechanical product = 667 × 0.88 = 586.96
in-depth mechanical product = 667 × 0.12 = 80.04

opinion boundary = 667 × 0.02 = 13.34
largest whole-case integer below 13.34 = 13

daily carrying cost = C
fast-closure planning exposure = 15 × C
in-depth review exposure = D × C
incremental exposure beyond the 15-day benchmark = (D - 15) × C
per-unit allocation = incremental exposure / affected units

D is not supplied, so no monetary amount is calculated.

The point

The 2025 EU FDI screening data support a clear timing split: 88% of 667 notified cases closed within 15 days, but 12% entered in-depth assessment and the source gives no fixed end date for that group. Importers planning EU transactions before FISR applies from 17 January 2028 should budget for the fast benchmark and protect the closing timetable against the smaller, open-ended escalation path.