When are CDP scores released? The 2026 CDP score release date, and what arrives with it

CDP releases 2026 scores to disclosing organizations in the week of November 30, 2026, through the CDP portal. The public release, including the A Lists, follows later that same week for organizations whose scores are eligible to be published. That is roughly eleven weeks after the September 16 scoring deadline, and the gap is where the scoring itself happens.

Last updated August 2026. The waiting period catches people out because nothing visible happens during it. You submit, the portal confirms receipt, and then there is silence until late November. This post covers the exact dates for the 2026 cycle, what the release actually contains, who can see your letter, and the two things worth doing in the gap rather than after it.

When are CDP scores released in 2026?

Scores go to disclosers first and to the public second, in the same week. CDP's initial release lands in the CDP portal in the week of November 30, 2026, visible to the organization that submitted the response. The public release, and the A Lists that go with it, follow later that week.

Placed against the rest of the cycle, the calendar looks like this.

One point of confusion is worth clearing up. Some sources still describe CDP scores as appearing in January, which reflects an older pattern where the public score data was posted on CDP's website after the initial release. The date that matters for planning is the release to disclosers, because that is when you can actually see your letter and decide whether to appeal.

What is in the CDP score release?

More than a letter. The initial release gives you three things, and the second and third are the ones that make the release useful rather than merely final.

• Your overall score for each environmental issue you were scored on, from A down to D-. You can receive up to three separate letters, since CDP scores climate change, forests and water security independently.
• A breakdown by scoring category, which shows where inside the questionnaire your points came from and where they did not. This is the part to read closely, because it converts directly into next year's work plan.
• Sector and regional averages to compare against. A B in a sector averaging C- is a different commercial position from a B in a sector averaging B, and the averages are what let you tell your customers which one you are in.

If your letter is lower than you expected, the category breakdown usually explains it in one of two ways: unanswered questions scoring zero, or an essential criterion you missed that capped you at the level below regardless of your percentage. Both are covered in more detail on our page about what a good CDP score is and how CDP scoring works, and the checks that do the capping are listed level by level under CDP essential criteria.

Will your CDP score be made public?

Only sometimes, and it depends on who asked you to disclose rather than on what you scored. If capital markets signatories requested your disclosure, your score is published whatever it is. If a customer requested it through CDP's supply chain program, it stays private unless you receive an A.

That asymmetry matters most for first-time suppliers, who often assume a mediocre first-year score will be visible to their whole customer base. Usually it will not be. The full breakdown of which request type produces a public score sits on the CDP score page, and what a customer request involves is covered in the CDP supply chain questionnaire.

When is the CDP A List published?

In the same week as the public release, at the end of November 2026. The A List is the group of organizations reaching the top band of the Leadership level, and it is deliberately small: 899 companies made the 2025 Corporate A List out of nearly 20,000 scored, which is about 5%. Twenty-seven companies achieved Triple A status by scoring A on climate change, forests and water security at once. What separates that group from everyone else is a fixed set of gates rather than a general standard of quality, and they are listed on CDP A List criteria.

One change lands in 2026. SMEs answering the SME questionnaire can earn an SME A score for climate change for the first time, and CDP will publish the organizations that achieve it alongside the main A Lists. CDP is explicit that an SME A is not equivalent to a full corporate questionnaire A, so if you plan to use it in marketing, describe it accurately.

An A List placement is a public, dated, quotable fact about your company, and it tends to get picked up by customers, procurement teams and trade press in the days after publication. If that is the outcome you are working toward, it is worth having a way to see where your company gets mentioned once the news is out, because the reach of a listing is usually wider than the companies that tell you about it.

What if you have not submitted yet?

Then the score release date is not your problem, because responses that arrive after the scoring deadline are marked "not scored" and never receive a letter. The 2026 scoring deadline is September 16, 2026 at 23:59 International Date Line West.

There is one route out, and it is not widely advertised. CDP offers On-Demand Extensions to a very limited number of organizations in 2026, for a fee, moving the deadline to September 30, 2026. The request must come from your organization's Disclosure Submission Lead rather than a consultant, and it has to be made by September 29 at the latest to allow processing time. The fee is US$2,500 for North America and Latin America excluding Brazil, £2,000 in the UK and €2,300 in Europe including Türkiye. Slots are limited, extensions are granted at CDP's discretion, and the fee is non-refundable once granted even if you go on to submit within the original deadline.

If you are inside the last few weeks and the gap is emissions data rather than narrative, that is a solvable problem: an eight-week plan for getting a scored response in sits on the CDP reporting deadline for 2026.

What to do between submission and the score release

The eleven-week gap is the most useful working time in the whole cycle, and most teams waste it. You have a complete response, the questions are fresh, and nothing is urgent. Next August, none of those things will be true.

1. Write down every number you could not evidence. While you still remember which figures came from a clean source and which were assembled under time pressure, list them. That list is your data plan, and it is worth more than the score report you are waiting for.
2. Fix the boundary questions you deferred. Consolidation approach, which entities are inside the inventory, how leases were treated. These decide what counts as Scope 1 versus Scope 3 and are much easier to settle now than mid-response: operational vs financial control walks through the choice.
3. Start verification conversations if you are aiming at Leadership. Third-party verification carries real weight at the top level and takes months to arrange, so it is a decision for December, not for next August.
4. Close the Scope 3 categories you skipped. CDP expects all 15 to be considered. A spend-based screening pass gets you a defensible first estimate across the full set quickly: calculating Scope 3 emissions from spend.

The common thread is that almost everything limiting a CDP score is an inventory problem rather than a writing problem. Getting emissions data into a form where each figure traces back to a source record is the work, and it is what our carbon accounting software does from accounts payable and utility data. The same ground, framed around the CDP response itself, is on CDP reporting software.

Can you appeal your CDP score after it is released?

Yes. If you think an error was made, you can submit an appeal form after the release and CDP's oversight team reviews it independently of whoever scored the response originally. Two things are worth knowing before you file. An appeal can trigger a full re-review of your response rather than only the point you raised, so the score can move in either direction. And appeal outcomes are final, so it is a one-shot process rather than a negotiation.

Scoring is carried out partly by trained external scoring partners working under CDP's methodology and quality assurance, with conflict-of-interest declarations required in advance; any organization where a conflict exists is moved back to CDP's internal scoring team. That structure is why appeals are handled as a methodology review rather than a difference of opinion.

CDP dates and scoring facts on this page summarize CDP's own published guidance as it stood in August 2026, principally the CDP Full Corporate Scoring Introduction 2026, CDP's help center guidance on understanding your score, and CDP's published 2025 A List figures. CDP sets and can change its own deadlines, extension availability and fees, so confirm current dates with CDP directly before planning around them. Nothing here is legal or accounting advice, and this page is not affiliated with or endorsed by CDP. Our product is in early access; capabilities are described as planned, and the demo shows what it does today.