Not signing the EU transparency code: what you must show instead

Not signing is allowed, but the Commission's pages say you then have to demonstrate that your own measures are adequate, and each market surveillance authority assesses that individually. The Transparency obligations under Article 50 of the AI Act page adds that non-adherents "may be subject to more requests for information." Article 50 itself applies either way. This reports the Commission and is not legal advice.

What changes if I sign?

The Code of Practice page says signatories can rely on the measures in the code to demonstrate compliance with the marking and labelling rules for Article 50(2), (4) and (5), which reduces administrative burden and gives predictability across all Member States. The FAQ says the same in terms of legal certainty "regardless of their place of establishment, operation or competent supervisory authority." It also says signatories collaborate in Signatory Taskforces to share practices.

The code page states that about 190 companies and organisations had signed by the end of July 2026.

What changes if I do not?

The code page says providers and deployers who comply through other means "will have to demonstrate that those measures are adequate," assessed individually by different market surveillance authorities. The FAQ adds the extra information requests, since there is less transparency on how they comply.

Two limits on this. The code only covers Article 50(2), (4) and (5). For Article 50(1) and (3) the FAQ says everyone, signatory or not, determines adequate measures themselves with the guidelines in mind. And the code page says plainly that signing is voluntary while the obligations are not.

What should a non-signatory keep on file?

Neither page lists required documents. A sensible minimum is whatever lets you show which files were AI-generated and what you did about marking and labelling each one. With Sume, Jobs and results documents durable job ids and result artifacts you can record per file; what you do about labels is a separate step you document yourself.