EU Digital Markets Act — First Review Report

What this countdown tracks

This page counts down to the European Commission's first mandatory review of the Digital Markets Act (DMA), scheduled for 3 May 2026. The review will assess whether the law is meeting its goal of making core platform services more contestable and fair. Findings could trigger amendments to gatekeeper designation thresholds, scope extensions, or new obligations.

Background

The Digital Markets Act entered into force on 1 November 2022 and became fully applicable on 2 May 2023. Under Article 53, the Commission must produce its first evaluation report within three years of the date of application, which sets the May 2026 deadline. The Commission opened a public consultation on the first review in July 2024, inviting stakeholders to submit evidence on contestability, fairness, scope of the Regulation, and enforcement effectiveness.

Seven companies have so far been designated as gatekeepers — Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, Microsoft, and Booking Holdings — covering 24 core platform services ranging from app stores and search engines to messaging and cloud. Since March 2024, the Commission has opened multiple non-compliance investigations, including probes into Apple's steering rules, Alphabet's self-preferencing in Search, and Meta's "pay-or-consent" advertising model. In April 2025, the Commission issued its first non-compliance decisions against Apple and Meta, fining them €500M and €200M respectively. Article 53(3) explicitly empowers the Commission to propose legislative amendments if the review finds gaps — notably on the list of core platform services, threshold calibration, and obligations under Articles 5, 6, and 7. The review will feed into the Commission's assessment of whether the core platform service definitions need broadening, for instance to cover AI assistants, generative-AI-enabled gatekeeper products, or cloud infrastructure platforms currently outside scope. Civil-society submissions, including from BEUC and the European Consumer Organisation, have pressed for tighter interoperability obligations on number-independent interpersonal communication services (NI-ICS) such as iMessage and WhatsApp, which Article 7 only partially addresses today.

Why the date matters

Article 53 makes the three-year review a hard legal deadline, not a discretionary exercise. The 3 May 2026 report is the first structured moment at which the Commission can propose legislative amendments to the DMA — potentially revising the quantitative thresholds that trigger gatekeeper designation, adjusting the list of core platform services, or tightening specific obligations. It is also the first comprehensive stocktake of enforcement experience since early non-compliance decisions began landing in 2025.

What to watch for

• Whether the Commission proposes adding new core platform services such as generative-AI assistants.
• Revised gatekeeper designation thresholds on turnover, user base, or market capitalisation.
• Guidance on interoperability for number-independent messaging services.
• Treatment of "pay-or-consent" advertising models in the final report.
• Any proposal to extend obligations to cloud-service gatekeepers beyond Amazon AWS.
• Signals on coordination with the EU AI Act enforcement regime.
• Commission assessment of compliance costs and innovation impact.

Related events to track

Cross-cutting enforcement dates bracket this review: the EU AI Act enforcement countdown on 2 August 2026 brings high-risk and general-purpose AI obligations online. The EU Data Act design obligations countdown on 12 September 2026 overlaps heavily with DMA interoperability debates. A comparator on the US side is the FTC Amazon antitrust trial countdown, which will test analogous theories of harm.

FAQ

When exactly is the DMA first review? 3 May 2026, the three-year anniversary of the Regulation's date of application under Article 53.

Is the DMA first review confirmed or expected? Confirmed as a legal obligation in Article 53 of Regulation (EU) 2022/1925.

Who is responsible for the DMA first review? The European Commission's Directorate-General for Competition and DG CONNECT jointly, with input from the European Parliament and Council.

Where can I read the official announcement? The consultation and review documents are published at https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/consultation-first-review-digital-markets-act_en.