what is the difference between a VSME and CSRD questionnaire

VSME is a format, CSRD is a legal obligation

The difference lies in the status: CSRD (Directive (EU) 2022/2464) is the European directive that requires large and listed undertakings to report on sustainability, with an extensive standard full of mandatory data points. VSME is not a scaled-down legal version of that, but a voluntary standard by EFRAG, created for unlisted SMEs that do not fall under CSRD themselves. If you receive a questionnaire that mentions "VSME", it is not the legislator asking something of you, but a customer who is themselves CSRD-obligated and uses the basic module to collect data from their suppliers.

For the questionnaire itself, that difference makes a difference in tone, not in the type of questions. A CSRD questionnaire from a large customer often comes with a more extensive underlying standard and sometimes probes deeper into scope 3 emissions, supply chain risks or governance indicators, because the customer must report on that themselves. A VSME list stays closer to the basic module: size, energy, waste, personnel — largely the same core data that also the company's annual turnover and the number of employees apply to. In practice, a supplier often fills in the same answers, only in a different format, because both questionnaires draw on the same supply chain file.

Where that difference in status becomes apparent

The CSRD obligation is set out in Directive (EU) 2022/2464 and places the reporting duty on the undertaking that itself falls within the scope — usually a larger customer, not the supplier filling in the questionnaire. The VSME basic module by EFRAG is not a directive but a market-developed standard, intended to fill precisely that gap: a simple, recognizable format with which a CSRD-obligated customer can query their supply chain without imposing the full standard on every supplier. For those filling in the questionnaire, what matters most is which format it contains — VSME or the full CSRD standard — because that determines how much detail is requested, not whether there is a legal obligation behind it.