Britain's short selling rulebook reaches a genuine handover point on 13 July 2026. The Short Selling Regulations 2025 created the replacement framework, and the FCA says its new short selling regime will apply from that date. Read together, these measures amount to the switch from the old EU-derived short selling rulebook to a UK-run system under the Financial Services and Markets Act model. (legislation.gov.uk) HM Treasury has been explicit about the direction of travel. In its short selling review, the department said the aim was to replace retained EU law with a regime better tailored to UK markets, while the FCA has now set out the final handbook rules that sit beneath that new framework. (gov.uk)

Short selling can sound niche, but the policy question is straightforward. HM Treasury's explanatory material describes it as borrowing a security, selling it, then trying to buy it back later at a lower price. The same material says government still sees short selling as useful for liquidity, risk management and price discovery, while accepting that it can also unsettle confidence in stressed markets. (legislation.gov.uk) That is why the July changes are better read as a rewrite of supervision rather than a retreat from supervision. The FCA's April 2026 statement said the final regime is meant to reduce reporting burdens for firms while keeping regulatory oversight and emergency powers in place. (fca.org.uk)

The clearest change for listed companies and market watchers sits in disclosure. The FCA says the current regime still involves public disclosure of individual firms' net short positions at and above the 0.5% threshold. From 13 July 2026, that public tape changes: the regulator will stop disclosing named individual positions and will publish anonymised aggregate net short positions by company instead. (fca.org.uk) Those aggregate figures will be built from positions reported to the FCA at or above 0.2% of issued share capital, and the Short Selling Regulations 2025 say publication must happen no later than two working days after the day the figure relates to. For retail investors, the result is less visibility on which fund is shorting a stock, but still a usable read on overall bearish positioning in that company. That final sentence is an inference from the new disclosure model. (fca.org.uk)

For firms doing the reporting, the detail matters more than the politics. The FCA says the reporting thresholds are unchanged: 0.2% of a company's issued share capital, and every 0.1% step above that. The operational shift is the deadline, which moves to 23:59 T+1, alongside updated guidance on issued share capital, group reporting and notification templates. (fca.org.uk) There is also a cleaner way of defining what is in scope. A new reportable shares list will replace the older exempt shares list, and the FCA is formalising a five-year record-keeping requirement for covering arrangements. For compliance teams, that makes 13 July a systems date as much as a legal one. (fca.org.uk)

Market makers are one of the few groups getting a visibly lighter process. The FCA says exemption notifications will become activity-based, so firms will no longer need to keep sending further notifications just to add financial instruments, and the ongoing check-in will move to an annual attestation. Existing exemption users will still need to re-notify under the transition. (fca.org.uk) A narrower but still relevant change affects sovereign instruments. According to the FCA, UK sovereign credit default swaps will sit outside position reporting and covering requirements, while existing exemptions for market making in UK sovereign debt will no longer apply from 13 July 2026. The regulator's emergency powers, however, still cover these instruments. (fca.org.uk)

The larger point is that the rulebook is being relocated, not removed. The FCA says its new sourcebook largely replicates existing provisions, keeps a high bar for emergency intervention, and will be rolled out in two phases, with bulk submission changes for position reporting due on 30 November 2026. That should steady nerves among issuers and investors who hear 'revocation' and assume the UK is dropping controls. It is not. (fca.org.uk) For Market Pulse UK readers, the practical takeaway is simple. Monday 13 July 2026 is the date to watch, and the main visible shift will be from named short positions to company-level aggregates. Beneath that, the deeper story is the continued post-Brexit move from inherited EU market rules to a UK regime written by HM Treasury and the FCA. (fca.org.uk)