Eshraqi, M. Status of the Construction and Commissioning of ESS JACoW Publishing Geneva, Switzerland The ESS linac under construction will deliver beam at 2 GeV with an unprecedented 5 MW average power. The commissioning of the Normal Conducting Drift Tube linac should be completed by the first quarter of 2020. The status of the commissioning and of the construction of ESS will be reported. The plans and challenges towards operation of the ESS will be described and reviewed.