Bank of England Insurance Taxonomy 2.1.0 and PS18/26: what changes for year-end 2026 and how to submit through BEEDS

Two Bank of England taxonomy versions sit on the calendar of every Solvency UK reporting team this year. Version 2.1.0 carries the liquidity templates that the largest firms start filing for the 30 September 2026 reference date. Version 2.2.0 implements PS18/26 and applies to every return with a reference date on or after 31 December 2026, so it is the taxonomy of the year end package. This article covers the release train, what 2.1.0 adds and who is in scope, what 2.2.0 and PS18/26 change for year end, the affected templates with their deadlines, how to test a file, a checklist by quarter, and where this work sits in BOE Tool, our Bank of England XBRL reporting software. It builds on Solvency UK vs Solvency II, which covers how the PRA regime split from EIOPA’s.

The release train: which version for which reference date

The Bank publishes each version on its regulatory reporting page with a release note, the XBRL package, the validation rules, sample instances, the data point model and a change log. The rule that matters is the effective reference date, not the publication date: a return is built on the version in force for its reference date, and BEEDS returns a fatal error when an instance references any other taxonomy.

Version 2.0.2, published on 2 October 2025, replaced the first Solvency UK version 2.0.1 with validation fixes and data point model changes and applies to reference dates on or after 31 December 2025. Version 2.1.0 was published on 16 December 2025; its liquidity framework is effective from 1 October 2026 for reference dates on or after 30 September 2026. Version 2.2.0 followed on 2 September 2026 (the Bank’s reporting page lists it under 3 September), after a public working draft on 21 April 2026, and its amended frameworks are effective from 1 January 2027 for reference dates on or after 31 December 2026.

A firm outside the liquidity scope files its 30 September 2026 quarterly return on 2.0.2 or 2.1.0 and its 31 December 2026 returns on 2.2.0; a firm inside the scope files the liquidity entry points on 2.1.0 from October and moves everything to 2.2.0 for year end.

What 2.1.0 adds: liquidity reporting under PS15/25

PS15/25, published on 30 September 2025, introduces four liquidity templates and amends the Reporting Part of the PRA Rulebook. The PRA deferred implementation from the 31 December 2025 proposed in CP19/24 to 30 September 2026.

The release note describes 2.1.0 as four additional entry points under a new LQ framework. CFL is the cash flow mismatch template in long form: expected and contractual cash flows, unencumbered assets and the effect of credit and market stresses, filed monthly within 10 business days. CFS is the short form, a subset focused on the fastest moving drivers of liquidity strain, filed monthly at T+1 and daily at T+1 at the PRA’s discretion during a firm-specific or market stress. COL covers committed liquidity facilities, annual, 70 business days after year end. LMR is the liquidity market risk sensitivities template, quarterly within 30 business days and reported at fund level rather than solo level.

Every entry point from 2.0.2 is included in 2.1.0 without modification, and the release note states that 2.1.0 is backwards compatible with 2.0.2 for the DIS, IR, IMO, MRS, SPV and SF frameworks, so firms outside the liquidity scope are not required to move.

Who is in scope

The rule instrument in Appendix 1 of PS15/25 ties each condition to a cell the firm already reports. Size comes first: total assets in IR.02.01.01 cell C0010/R0500, excluding the unit-linked and index-linked assets in C0010/R0220, above £20 billion on average over three consecutive quarters. A firm above that line is in scope if it also has derivatives with a total notional in IR.08.01.01 cell C0130, excluding the unit-linked contracts in C0080, above £10 billion at any time, or securities in lending or repurchase agreements, on or off balance sheet, above £1 billion at any time.

Reporting starts on the first reference date after the conditions are met and stops after three consecutive annual reference dates below the thresholds. The Society of Lloyd’s and its managing agents, third-country branches and non-Solvency II firms are excluded, and the PRA expects general insurers to fall outside the thresholds on current exposures.

A ring-fenced fund can be left out if its derivatives notional stays under £500 million, it neither gives nor receives liquidity support within the firm and it has no matching adjustment portfolio embedded in it. Each submission type carries its own header, LQ.00.01.01 to LQ.00.01.04, plus LQ.00.02.01 for the firm and LQ.00.03.01 for the funds and portfolios covered.

What 2.2.0 and PS18/26 change for 31 December 2026

PS18/26, published on 29 July 2026, is the PRA’s post-implementation clean-up of the Solvency UK package. It closes CP22/25 together with Proposal 1 of CP4/26 on own funds, so that every change lands through one taxonomy update, and applies to reference dates on or after 31 December 2026.

Taxonomy 2.2.0 implements it. The release note lists a new MALIR framework, MAL, with a single entry point, and amended DIS, IR and IMO frameworks. The QRB entry point for quarterly third-country branch reporting has been deleted because PS13/26 removed third-country branches from quarterly reporting. The liquidity entry points are unchanged.

The MALIR templates MA.01.01 and MA.02.01 move from Excel to XBRL and are filed under the MAL entry point. NACE 2.1 activity codes in IR.06.02 list of assets, IR.11.01 assets held as collateral, IR.05.07 and MA.01.01 are optional for the 31 December 2026 reference date and mandatory from 1 January 2027. In IR.05.04 the PRA dropped the proposed variant IR.05.04.04 and instead requires total income and expenditure inside IR.05.04.02. In IR.16.01 the reference date for the non-life annuity provision progression moves from 31 December 2024 to 31 December 2026. The own funds templates IR.23.01 to IR.23.04 get new terminology, with equity-accounted subordinated liabilities relabelled as equity- and liability-accounted subordinated instruments, and the validation check equating IR.23.01 row R0140 with IR.02.01 row R0870 is removed. The Z0020 and Z0030 fund labels are standardised across fourteen templates from IR.02.01 to IR.26.07.

Affected templates, frequency and first reference date

Codes are as the PRA prints them in the rule instrument and the policy statement; deadlines come from the Bank’s schedules for a 31 December year end.

Inside the taxonomy package

The XBRL package holds the schemas: one module per entry point, referenced from the instance by its schemaRef, the LQ modules dated 2025-12-16 and the 2.2.0 IR, DIS and IMO modules dated 2026-09-02. An instance declares exactly one of them. The mechanics of instances, contexts and filing indicators are covered in what XBRL is in insurance reporting.

The validation package holds the assertions BEEDS runs on upload. The Bank keeps a deny list of deactivated or downgraded rules, last updated on 11 September 2026 at the time of writing, and a known issues log; a fix usually waits for the next release and the rule is switched off in the meantime. The data point model is guidance only and the policy prevails where they conflict. Sample instances contain random data and are not expected to pass validation. The filing rules live in the XBRL filing manual, version 1.0.1 of 30 May 2024, which the 2.2.0 release note names as the document a submission must adhere to.

Testing a submission before the deadline

BEEDS is the only route for a Solvency UK return. A firm not yet set up sends its legal entity name, LEI, firm reference number, financial year end, reporting waivers and the principal user’s details to the Bank’s insurance data mailbox, copying its supervisor.

The testing options are thinner than the word portal suggests. PS15/25 states that the PRA will organise user acceptance testing windows so that firms can test their liquidity submissions through BEEDS. The October 2025 reporting Q&A records that firms asked for a UAT environment alongside the live one and for a test window close to each deadline, and that the PRA would consider it. No standing test portal is documented anywhere we could find. The announced windows are the only chance to see a real BEEDS response before the deadline, so everything else happens locally: validate the instance against the published assertions minus the deny list, check it against the filing manual and confirm the schemaRef points at the module for the right reference date. BEEDS returns errors 100 lines at a time, so a file with several hundred takes several rounds.

Preparation checklist by quarter

Before 30 September 2026, a firm inside the liquidity scope needs the short form feeds live before the reference date, because the first return is due on 1 October, and should have rehearsed the daily variant. The full template follows on 14 October. Every firm should decide whether to file that quarter on 2.0.2 or 2.1.0.

In the fourth quarter the year end package moves. Load taxonomy 2.2.0, its validation package and the change log from 2.1.0, and map each changed cell to its source: the IR.05.04.02 totals, the IR.16.01 progression from a 31 December 2026 base, the renamed own funds rows and the fund labels. Decide whether to adopt NACE 2.1 at year end or wait for the mandatory date, and if adopting, recode the asset master data behind IR.06.02 and IR.11.01. Matching adjustment firms build the MALIR as XBRL for the first time. The 30 September quarterly return is due on 11 November for solo firms and 16 December for groups, and the first LMR return on 11 November.

In the first quarter of 2027, the fourth quarter return is due on 12 February for solo firms and 19 March for groups, on 2.2.0, with NACE 2.1 mandatory. The annual return is due on 13 April for solo firms, the same day as the first committed facilities return, and on 26 May for groups.

Where this lands in the software

BOE Tool is built on the Bank of England Insurance Taxonomy, so the IR and DIS entry points are its native template set. Data comes in from databases, Excel and CSV files through import definitions that are set up once and reused quarter after quarter, which is what a change like the IR.05.04.02 totals or a recoded IR.06.02 comes down to. The tool runs the Bank’s validation rules before anything reaches BEEDS and resolves the recurring errors automatically, so the portal’s 100 line error batches become the exception. SmartData, embedded in the tool, carries reference data on more than 13 million securities plus Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation data for the LEI codes and ultimate parents in the asset templates. A free, noncommittal account is available for the test and transition period.