XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) is a freely available and global framework for exchanging business information. XBRL allows the expression of semantic meaning commonly required in business reporting. The standard was originally based on XML, but now additionally supports reports in JSON and CSV formats, as well as the original XML-based syntax. XBRL is also increasingly used in its Inline XBRL variant, which embeds XBRL tags into an HTML document. One common use of XBRL is the exchange of financial information, such as in a company's annual financial report. The XBRL standard is developed and published by XBRL International, Inc. (XII).

XBRL is a standards-based way to communicate and exchange business information between business systems. These communications are defined by metadata set out in taxonomies, which capture the definition of individual reporting concepts as well as the relationships between concepts and other semantic meaning. Information being communicated or exchanged is provided within an XBRL instance.

Early users of XBRL included regulators such as the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Committee of European Banking Supervisors (CEBS). Common functions in many countries that make use of XBRL include regulators of stock exchanges and securities, banking regulators, business registrars, revenue reporting and tax-filing agencies, and national statistical agencies.

A list of known XBRL projects is published by XBRL International. Within the last ten years, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the United Kingdom's HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), and Singapore's Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA), had begun to require companies to use it, and other regulators were following suit. Development of the SEC's initial US GAAP Taxonomy was led by XBRL US and was accepted and deployed for use by public companies in 2008 in phases, with the largest filers going first: foreign companies which use International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) are expected to submit their financial returns to the SEC using XBRL once the IFRS taxonomy has been accepted by the SEC. In the UK in 2011, both HMRC and Companies House accepted XBRL in the iXBRL format. XBRL was adopted by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) of India for filing financial and costing information with the Central Government.