BRUSSELS — The European Commission is asking Big Tech platforms how much it costs to comply with the Digital Services Act in a questionnaire seen by POLITICO.

The six-page questionnaire sent to Very Large Online Platforms and Search Engines on Sept. 19 includes detailed questions about how much companies are spending to come up with transparency reports and implement compliance measures.

The Commission, in charge of supervising how these big platforms are complying with the EU’s landmark online safety regulation, is preparing a review of the regulation for Nov. 17.

The questionnaire asks companies to estimate how much they spend on IT — for example to set up monitoring tools to measure active users — as well as service providers and staff. The request covers both one-off costs when the DSA came into place, and ongoing requirements such as regular transparency reports.

An optional part of the questionnaire asks platforms to qualitatively assess what are the main drivers of the various costs, such as the existence of many formats and portals or the complexity of the underlying legal concepts.

The study is conducted by Visionary Analytics, a Lithuanian research firm.

On top of compliance costs, platforms with over 45 million users in the EU have to pay a supervisory fee to the Commission to fund their own oversight. TikTok and Meta have partly won a court challenge on the Commission’s process for calculating these fees.