XBRL

eXtensible Business Reporting Language

Filename extension	.xbrl, .xml
Internet media type	application/xml
Developed by	XBRL International
Initial release	December 31, 2003; 20 years ago (2003-12-31)
Latest release	v2.1 (with errata corrections) February 20, 2013; 11 years ago (2013-02-20)
Type of format	Markup language
Extended from	XML
Standard	XBRL 2.1 Specification[1]

Part of a series on
Accounting
Historical cost Constant purchasing power Management Tax
Major types Audit Budget Cost Forensic Financial Fund Governmental Management Social Tax
Key concepts Accounting period Accrual Constant purchasing power Economic entity Fair value Going concern Historical cost Matching principle Materiality Revenue recognition Unit of account
Selected accounts Assets Cash Cost of goods sold Depreciation / Amortization (business) Equity Expenses Goodwill Liabilities Profit Revenue
Accounting standards Generally-accepted principles Generally-accepted auditing standards Convergence International Financial Reporting Standards International Standards on Auditing Management Accounting Principles
Financial statements Annual report Balance sheet Cash-flow Equity Income Management discussion Notes to the financial statements
Bookkeeping Bank reconciliation Debits and credits Double-entry system FIFO and LIFO Journal Ledger / General ledger Trial balance
Auditing Financial Internal Firms Report Sarbanes–Oxley Act
People and organizations Accountants Accounting organizations Luca Pacioli
Development History Research Positive accounting Sarbanes–Oxley Act
Misconduct Creative Earnings management Error account Hollywood Off-balance-sheet Two sets of books
v t e

XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) is a freely available and global framework for exchanging business information. XBRL allows the expression of semantics commonly required in business reporting. The standard was originally based on XML, but now additionally supports reports in JSON and CSV formats, as well as the original XML-based syntax. XBRL is also increasingly used in its Inline XBRL variant, which embeds XBRL tags into an HTML document. One common use of XBRL is the exchange of financial information, such as in a company's annual financial report. The XBRL standard is developed and published by XBRL International, Inc. (XII).

XBRL is a standards-based way to communicate and exchange business information between business systems. These communications are defined by metadata set out in taxonomies, which capture the definition of individual reporting concepts as well as the relationships between concepts and other semantic meaning. Information being communicated or exchanged is provided within an XBRL instance.

Early users of XBRL included regulators such as the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation^[2] and the Committee of European Banking Supervisors (CEBS).^[3] Common functions in many countries that make use of XBRL include regulators of stock exchanges and securities, banking regulators, business registrars, revenue reporting and tax-filing agencies, and national statistical agencies.

A list of known XBRL projects is published by XBRL International.^[4] Within the last ten years, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the United Kingdom's HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), and Singapore's Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA),^[5] had begun to require companies to use it, and other regulators were following suit.^[6][7] Development of the SEC's initial US GAAP Taxonomy was led by XBRL US and was accepted and deployed for use by public companies in 2008 in phases, with the largest filers going first: foreign companies which use International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) are expected to submit their financial returns to the SEC using XBRL once the IFRS taxonomy has been accepted by the SEC. In the UK in 2011, both HMRC and Companies House accepted XBRL in the iXBRL format. XBRL was adopted by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) of India for filing financial and costing information with the Central Government.^[8]