The short version

• The EU Space Act is a proposed regulation, COM(2025) 335 final, published 25 June 2025. It is not law yet.
• 120 articles across three pillars: safety, resilience and sustainability.
• It reaches non-EU operators. Obligations attach to anyone providing space based data or services in the Union, wherever they are established.
• The Council and Parliament are still negotiating. Application dates have already slipped from the Commission’s proposed 1 January 2030.

Europe currently regulates space activity through thirteen different national regimes. A satellite operator established in Luxembourg, launching from French Guiana, with a ground station in Spain and customers in Germany, deals with several authorisation frameworks that were written independently and do not align.

The EU Space Act is the Commission’s attempt to replace that with one instrument. It is ambitious, it is contested, and as at August 2026 it is still a proposal.

What was proposed

The full title is the Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the safety, resilience and sustainability of space activities in the Union. It was published on 25 June 2025 as COM(2025) 335 final, under procedure 2025/0335(COD), with Article 114 TFEU as its legal basis. That choice of legal basis is deliberate: this is framed as an internal market measure, not a space policy one.

The text runs to 120 articles across seven titles.

Pillar one: safety

Tracking of space objects, debris mitigation, collision avoidance and end-of-life disposal, supported by a Union Register of Space Objects. This is the pillar that most resembles what the FCC and the FAA already do, and where operators with US authorisations will find the least new ground.

Pillar two: resilience

Cybersecurity risk management obligations across the full mission lifecycle, from design through to disposal. This pillar is more detailed than NIS2 and was originally drafted as lex specialis to it, which raised an obvious question about which instrument governs an operator caught by both.

Pillar three: sustainability

Environmental footprint declarations, a space specific life cycle assessment methodology, sustainability performance classification, and design requirements for debris limitation and in-space servicing. Minisatellites are carved out of some of the servicing design requirements.

The extraterritorial reach

This is the provision non-European operators need to read.

Article 2 brings in Union space operators providing services in the Union, third country space operators providing space based data or space services in the Union, international organisations operating space assets, primary providers of space based data, and advanced space service providers such as collision avoidance and in-space operations providers.

The connecting factor is service provision, not establishment. Obligations attach irrespective of where the operator is established, if the data or services are provided in the Union. Safety and collision avoidance rules extend to objects at or below geostationary orbit that generate data or enable services in the Union.

If the final text keeps that structure, a US or Indian constellation selling into Europe takes on European compliance obligations regardless of where its licence sits.

Penalties

Member State fines have to be effective, proportionate and dissuasive, with no stated ceiling in the proposal. Separately the Commission may impose fines of up to twice the profits gained, twice the losses avoided, or 2 percent of worldwide annual turnover, plus daily penalty payments for up to six months.

The 2 percent of global turnover figure is the one that has focused minds. It is GDPR-shaped, and it is being applied to an industry with a much smaller compliance function.

Where the file has got to

The lead committee is ITRE, with Elena Donazzan of the ECR group as rapporteur.

The rapporteur’s draft report was published on 3 March 2026. Its direction is simplification: cutting the maximum authorisation timeline from twelve months to six, and introducing mutual recognition of national authorisations so an operator authorised in one Member State is not re-examined in another.

ENVI and IMCO adopted opinions in May 2026. ENVI pushes for mandatory environmental impact assessment and lifecycle responsibility. IMCO proposes a “space check” of EU legislation and foreign investment oversight.

On the Council side, the Cypriot Presidency circulated a compromise text on 30 March 2026, with all Member States maintaining scrutiny reservations. A progress report on 8 May 2026, ahead of the Competitiveness Council on 29 May, described the text as moving in the right direction and reducing complexity, while listing open issues: regulatory scope and dual use exemptions, governance architecture, avoiding a duplicative Union layer over national procedures, and the equivalence regime for third country operators.

That last one is the sleeper issue for non-EU operators. Council changes so far would keep a registration and e-certificate requirement for third country operators while exempting them from direct Space Act obligations where an equivalence finding applies. Whether that survives is the single most commercially significant open question in the file.

Other Council changes worth tracking

• International organisations removed from direct obligations, with applicability made contingent on an EU to IO agreement
• Collision avoidance service providers excluded from scope
• The NIS2 relationship changed from lex specialis to parallel application, with large operators staying under NIS2 and smaller and third country operators under the Space Act

When would it apply

The Commission proposed 1 January 2030, with 1 January 2032 for certain asset categories. The Council position is 36 months after entry into force, with a transitional period of eight years for specific categories. The Parliament rapporteur is aligned with the Council on timing.

Translated: nobody should be planning compliance spend for 2030. A realistic first application date is later, and the transitional arrangements for existing constellations will matter more than the headline date.

One correction worth making

A number of secondary sources have described COM(2026) 152 of 7 April 2026 as an amended Space Act proposal. It is not. That document is the Proposal for a Regulation on the European Union Space Services Agency, procedure 2026/0084(COD), which gives EUSPA a standalone founding regulation, renames it, and raises its budget from €525.7 million for 2021 to 2027 to €979.6 million for 2028 to 2034. It is a separate instrument.

There is no amended Commission proposal for the Space Act. The text is being changed through Council compromise texts and Parliament committee amendments, which is why tracking it requires reading committee documents rather than waiting for a new COM number.