Version 3.1 of the SDMX technical specifications is scheduled for release at the end of 2024.

The major 3.0 release in 2021 made significant changes including adding microdata and geospatial support, plus improvements to structure mapping, referential metadata and constraints. The standard was simplified by deprecating redundant data formats and the legacy SOAP API.

Version 3.1 extends SDMX's data modelling capability adding explicit support for datasets with a high number of dimensions and/or variable dimensionality. The feature is designed to ease the modelling and metadata maintenance burden for ‘wide’ micro datasets with possibly hundreds of dimensions, and in macro data use cases like the SDGs with complex dimensionality. This feature named "Horizontally Complex DSDs" extends the capabilities of the Data Structure Definition (DSD) but preserves backwardly compatible meaning that 2.0, 2.1 and 3.0 DSDs remain valid in 3.1. The release will also fix minor bugs in the REST API specification and transmission format schemas, and make editorial corrections to the technical specification documentation.

As with previous releases, this latest version of the SDMX technical standards is being developed by the Technical Working Group (TWG) under the governance of the SDMX Secretariat and the SDMX Sponsors Committee.

An eight-week public consultation will be held starting in September 2024 with all stakeholders invited to comment on the draft specifications. Details of the consultation will be published in due course on sdmx.org and announced on various channels including the SDMX User Forum and LinkedIn.