EU FDI screening: 88% of 2025 cases closed in 15 days, new regime applies 17 January 2028

AI Summary

The EU’s new Foreign Investment Screening Regulation was adopted on 17 June 2026 and applies from 17 January 2028. Until then, the current cooperation mechanism runs. In 2025, member states notified 667 investments, up 40% on 2024. Of those, 88% closed within 15 days and 12% went to in-depth security review. The Commission issued opinions in less than 2% of cases. A buyer planning an EU acquisition or greenfield plant should assume a fast track for most deals and a long tail for the rest.

What happened

The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Trade and Economic Security published its annual screening report on 14 October 2026. Two things sit in it: the record of how the current mechanism performed in 2025, and the timetable for the instrument that replaces it.

The new Foreign Investment Screening Regulation (FISR) was adopted on 17 June 2026. It applies from 17 January 2028. Until that date, the existing cooperation mechanism governs how member states notify foreign direct investment to the Commission and to each other.

The 2025 numbers describe how that mechanism actually behaves:

The 667 figure compares with 477 notifications in 2024, which is where the 40% increase comes from. The 12% in-depth share is described as a 4% rise on the prior year. Manufacturing accounted for 53% of all transactions, up from 50% in 2024.

Foreign direct investment screening — a national review, coordinated through an EU cooperation mechanism, in which a member state examines whether an investment by a non-EU buyer in a domestic company or asset threatens security or public order. It is not a merger control review and it does not test competition. It tests who the buyer is and what the target does.

Why now

The application date is the operative fact. A deal signed, notified and cleared before 17 January 2028 runs under the mechanism whose 2025 record is in the table above. A deal notified after that date runs under the new regulation, whose procedural detail is not in this report.

The volume trend is the second fact. Notifications rose 40% in a single year, from 477 to 667. A mechanism processing two-thirds more files than the year before is a mechanism under load, and the 88% fast-track share is what keeps it moving.

So what

The 88% and the 12% are not two descriptions of the same deal. They are two populations, and the split is the whole planning problem.

Take 100 notified deals as the working unit, because the percentages are shares of the 667 and scale cleanly. Eighty-eight close within 15 days. Twelve go to in-depth assessment. Of those twelve, the Commission issues an opinion in fewer than two — the report puts the opinion rate across all cases at less than 2%, so the opinion is rare even inside the slow group.

For a buyer, that means the expected screening cost is not the average. It is a bimodal distribution. Most deals pay 15 days of legal and advisory time and move. A minority pay an in-depth review whose length the report does not state, and the cost of that review is not a percentage — it is the financing carry on a stalled transaction, the advisory hours, and the risk that the target’s order book moves while the file sits open.

Work it through on a mid-sized acquisition. A buyer with a EUR 20 million purchase price financing at 6% carries EUR 1.2 million a year, or roughly EUR 3,288 a day. Fifteen days of screening costs about EUR 49,300 in carry alone. If the deal lands in the 12% and the in-depth review runs to a quarter, the carry is about EUR 296,000 — six times the fast-track figure, before a single advisory invoice. The screening outcome does not change the price; it changes the cost of waiting for it.

The manufacturing concentration sharpens this. Fifty-three percent of transactions were in manufacturing, so a buyer acquiring a plant, a component supplier or a processing line is in the sector where the mechanism does most of its work. That is also the sector where an importer’s supply chain sits, which is why a vertical acquisition of a European supplier is a screening event and not just a corporate one.

The third arithmetic is the calendar. From 28 October 2026 to 17 January 2028 is roughly 14.5 months. A deal that needs signing, notification, a 15-day fast track and completion fits comfortably inside that window if it starts now. A deal that hits the 12% and runs long does not. The practical rule: if the transaction is not signed and notified with enough room to absorb a slow review before 17 January 2028, plan it as a post-2028 deal and budget for the new regulation rather than the old one.

How confident

Confirmed. The European Commission’s DG Trade and Economic Security report of 14 October 2026 states that the new FISR was adopted on 17 June 2026 and applies from 17 January 2028. The same report gives 667 notifications in 2025 against 477 in 2024, a 40% increase, an 88% share closed within 15 days, a 12% share requiring in-depth assessment, 53% of transactions in manufacturing, and Commission opinions in less than 2% of cases. Every figure in this article comes from that single document.

Inferred. The cost arithmetic in “So what” is mine, not the Commission’s. The 6% financing rate, the EUR 20 million purchase price and the quarter-long in-depth review are illustrative inputs chosen to show the shape of the cost, not figures from the report. The report does not state the duration of an in-depth review, so the quarter is an assumption. The 15-day and 12% figures rest on one document and I have not cross-checked them against a second source. The claim that the new regulation changes procedure after 17 January 2028 is supported only by the application date; the report does not describe the new procedure.

What would change my mind. A published text of the new FISR showing a different notification trigger, a different clock, or a transitional rule for deals in flight on 17 January 2028. A Commission statement giving the median or maximum duration of an in-depth review, which would replace my quarter-long assumption with a real number. And a 2026 notification count showing the 40% rise was a one-year step rather than a trend, which would change how much load the mechanism carries into 2028.

For you

• Importers acquiring a European supplier: treat the acquisition as a screening event, not a corporate formality. Notify early enough that a 15-day fast track completes before 17 January 2028, and hold a contingency for the 12% that do not.
• Importers building a greenfield plant in the EU: the 53% manufacturing concentration is your sector. Budget advisory time for the notification and model the financing carry on the assumption that the file sits open for a quarter, not a fortnight.
• Importers whose 2027 supply contract depends on a European target’s ownership: do not sign a supply commitment that assumes completion on a fixed date. Build a completion window into the contract that survives an in-depth review.
• Importers with a deal already in flight: check the notification date against 17 January 2028. A file notified before that date runs under the current mechanism; one notified after runs under the new regulation.

The mechanics of how a screening file interacts with a customs file are set out in EU FDI screening: 667 notifications in 2025, 12% sent to in-depth review. For the timing risk of the 2028 transition itself, read EU FDI screening will move to a new 2028 regime after a 40% rise in notified cases. And if the acquisition is part of a broader EU market entry, the duty arithmetic in EU trade defence stayed high in 2025, and three cases carried retroactive duties belongs in the same model.

The data point

Of the 667 investments notified to the EU cooperation mechanism in 2025, 88% were closed within 15 days.

FAQ

When does the new EU Foreign Investment Screening Regulation apply?

The new Foreign Investment Screening Regulation was adopted on 17 June 2026 and applies from 17 January 2028. Until that date, the existing cooperation mechanism governs how member states notify foreign direct investment to the Commission and to each other. For a buyer, the date is the dividing line: a deal notified before 17 January 2028 runs under the current mechanism, whose 2025 record is 667 notifications, 88% closed within 15 days and 12% sent to in-depth assessment. A deal notified after that date runs under the new regulation. The Commission’s report of 14 October 2026 gives the application date but does not describe the new procedure, so a buyer planning a post-2028 deal should not assume the current 15-day fast track carries over unchanged.

How long does EU FDI screening take?

In 2025, 88% of the 667 notified investments were closed within 15 days. The remaining 12% required an in-depth security risk assessment, and the Commission’s report does not state how long those take. The Commission issued opinions in less than 2% of cases, so a formal Commission opinion is rare even among the slow group. For planning, the useful assumption is a bimodal distribution: most files clear in a fortnight, a minority run long. A buyer should model the financing carry on both outcomes rather than on an average, because the average hides the tail that actually costs money.

Which sectors face the most in-depth EU FDI review?

Manufacturing accounted for 53% of all transactions notified in 2025, up from 50% in 2024, and the Commission’s report identifies it as where most in-depth assessments sit. That matters for importers because a vertical acquisition of a European plant, component supplier or processing line is both a supply-chain decision and a screening event. The 12% in-depth share is described as a 4% rise on the prior year, so the slow group is growing as a share of a notification volume that itself rose 40% between 2024 and 2025. A buyer in manufacturing should plan for the slow path as a live possibility, not a remote one.

How we calculated this

Notifications 2025:                    667
Notifications 2024:                    477
Increase:                              667 - 477 = 190
Increase as share of 2024:             190 / 477 = 39.8%  -> reported as 40%

Fast track:                            88% of 667 = 587 cases closed within 15 days
In-depth:                              12% of 667 = 80 cases to security risk assessment
Commission opinions:                   less than 2% of 667 = fewer than 13 cases

Illustrative carry (this article's inputs, not the report's):
  Purchase price:                      EUR 20,000,000
  Financing rate:                      6% per year
  Annual carry:                        20,000,000 x 0.06 = EUR 1,200,000
  Daily carry:                         1,200,000 / 365 = EUR 3,288
  15-day fast track:                   3,288 x 15 = EUR 49,315
  One-quarter in-depth review:         3,288 x 91 = EUR 299,208

Calendar to application date:
  28 October 2026 to 17 January 2028 = roughly 14.5 months

The point

The 88% is the number a buyer wants to hear and the 12% is the number a buyer has to plan for. The EU’s screening mechanism clears most deals in a fortnight and holds a minority for a review whose length the Commission does not publish. With the new regulation applying from 17 January 2028 and notifications up 40% in a single year, the deal that fits inside the current window is worth more than the deal that does not. Time the notification, not just the signing.