Based on the results of a full-scale otolith exchange held in 2014, the Working Group on Biological Parameters (WGBIOP 2015) identified the need for an age reading workshop on European Anchovy otoliths (WKARA2). This workshop (chaired by Andres Uriarte, Spain, Begoña Villamor, Spain and Gualtiero Basilone, Italy), was held in Pasaia, Gui-puzcoa (Spain) from the 28 November to 2 December 2016. Five countries took part in this workshop (Spain, Italy, Croatia, Greece and Tunisia), with a total of 16 participants from 9 laboratories. In total 17 areas/stocks were analysed (4 from the Atlantic area and 13 from Mediterranean Sea) The aim of this workshop was to review the information on age determination, discuss the results of the previous exchange (2014), review the validation methods existing on these species, clarify the interpretation of annual rings and update the age reading pro-tocol and a reference collection of well-defined otoliths. Age validation studies, in the Bay of Biscay and preliminary validation studies in Divi-sion 9a, Alboran Sea and Strait of Sicily areas were presented, including a compilation of age validation studies of this species as well in the literature. There are several ar-eas/stocks in which validations of the anchovy annual age determination have not been done yet. Due to the poor percentage of agreement achieved in the 2014 Exchange (mean agree-ment of 66%; mean CV of 58%), the workshop proceeded with a detailed and joint dis-cussion on the growth patterns shown by otoliths from the different areas to find out the major reasons for discrepancies in age determination among readers. At the same time, the joint discussion allowed a better understanding of the pattern of otolith growth in-crements by areas to improve the guidelines for their interpretation. The discussions on examples among otoliths which generated discrepancies in the age determination led to conclude that there were two major sources of disagreements: a) Divergent otolith inter-pretation: different interpretations of the marks, growth bands and edges in terms of their conformity with the expected growth pattern of the anchovies, seasonal formation of the otolith by ages and most common checks. and b) wrong application of the age allocation Rules: it was evidenced during the workshop that for the birthdate first July (or first June) in some cases the age determination rule was not being correctly applied during the first half of the year (from January to June). Following the workshop discussions there has been a progressive change in the percep-tion of the growth pattern applicable to these anchovy otoliths in many areas which led to some revisions of the otolith interpretation and assigned ages, by which growth at ages 0 and 1 are far prominent than at older ages and the occurrence of checks became more frequently admitted. Furthermore, there have been evidences that the age determination rules have in some instances been inconsistently applied. All these evidences led to con-clude on the need to review past age determinations. Although this task should be de-layed until running an exchange in 2018 to be sure that all the readers apply the protocol and the current criteria of this workshop coherently, since current criteria would change the otoliths interpretation and the age determination in many areas. In addition, for the Mediterranean regions the convenience of midyear birthdates was put in question in comparison with the simplicity of the conventional birthdates at first of January (as these anchovies are in the northern hemisphere). As a corollary of the former statements, intercalibration exercises by areas, for the differ-ent countries taking part in the age reading of the same exploited stock, are still required. Finally, this Workshop adopted a common protocol for all areas in order to standardize the anchovy age assignments and to improve the coherence of the age estimates. An agreed collection of otoliths by areas were produced and upload to the Age Readers Fo-rum.