January 22, 2026January 23, 2026

Discontinuation of the FIX Basic Repository format effective March 31, 2026

Dear Users of the FIX Protocol,

we believe that after 30 years of service, it is time for the Basic Repository to retire. Its successor (Unified Repository) was developed 15 years ago. Both provide meta-data for FIX interfaces. However, the breakthrough came with Orchestra, which was developed by FIX between 2016 and 2021 as a full-blown Technical Standard that supports not only the FIX Protocol but also any other protocol that has a concept of messages with components, fields, and values.

The Orchestra Repository for FIX Latest is the golden source for the FIX Protocol since more than two years now and we want to take the next step to fully leverage its capabilities. Previously, we had maintained the Basic Repository and converted that to Unified and from there to Orchestra. That severely limited our ability to use many of the Orchestra features for FIX Latest.

The machine-readable repository for FIX Latest is currently being provided in three different formats:

  • Basic Repository
  • Unified Repository
  • Orchestra Repository

We create all three formats for every Extension Pack and we have just passed the 300 mark with EP300 for the EU Consolidated Tape for Bonds and Equities. We will discontinue the distribution of Extension Packs in the Basic Repository format as of March 31, 2026 and would like to support those in the community that still use Basic to migrate to Unified, or even better, all the way to Orchestra.

Here is a little bit of history regarding the development of our repository formats. The Basic Repository was the first format and initially introduced with FIX 4.0 in January of 1996.  In 2010, today’s Unified Repository was added as a second format that supported annotations in multiple languages. The Orchestra Repository was a fundamental change as it represents a FIX Technical Standard and goes well beyond the meta-data capabilities of Basic and Unified. The latter are limited to the representation of the static content of an interface, i.e. messages, groups, components, fields, values, and datatypes. Orchestra is protocol-agnostic (supports FIX and non-FIX), syntax agnostic (supports multiple encodings, not just TagValue) and supports conditional rules, scenarios, workflows, and much more (see here for the online specification).

  • Since April 2020 and as of EP255, FIX Latest has been provided in the Orchestra Repository format (in addition to Basic and Unified, see here for details).
  • Since September 2021 and as of EP269, FIXimate is generated from the Orchestra Repository of FIX Latest (see here for details).
  • Since August 2022 and as of EP272, the Unified Repository is generated from the Orchestra Repository of FIX Latest (see here for details).
  • Since July 2023 and as of EP277, the FIXML schemas are generated from the Orchestra Repository of FIX Latest (see here for details).

FIX Trading Community has a GitHub presence that offers tools to help you with the migration from Basic to Unified and/or Orchestra. These tools have been used in the past to create the Unified and Orchestra Repositories from the respective Basic Repository. They have been made available as open-source under the Apache 2.0 license.

Hanno Klein
FIX Technical Director