In which countries does the undertaking have establishments?

Locations: a list, no explanation

The question about locations asks for a list of countries where the enterprise has an establishment — head office, branches, production facilities or subsidiaries. No explanation is requested regarding why those countries were chosen, and usually no distinction is made between ownership and lease, or between a legal entity and a physical office. The client simply wants to know in which jurisdictions the enterprise operates, often as a stepping stone to follow-up questions about sanctions lists, export controls or tax treaties.

In the base module of the VSME this is requested as part of general company information: name, legal form, head office and the countries in which the enterprise has establishments. This aligns with questions that appear earlier in the same module, such as the establishment address of the company and the sector in which the enterprise operates. Those who have already completed these two from the supply chain file can usually derive the country list directly: it is a sum of known locations, not new research.

Where this appears in the VSME base module

The VSME standard of EFRAG mentions the locations under general company information in the base module, as part of the description of enterprise structure alongside name, legal form and head office location. The evidence for this is usually internal: an overview from the commercial register extract, the group structure or the Chamber of Commerce registrations of the subsidiaries, not an external certificate. If the supply chain file does not yet contain this country list, there is no source on which to base the answer — then the field remains open until someone within the enterprise provides the list.