Node v13 / Jest / ES6 — native support for modules without babel or esm

Yes, it is possible from [email protected]. From this version, there is a native support of esm, so you will not have to transpile your code with babel anymore.

It is not documented yet, but according to this issue you have to do 3 easy steps to achieve that (At the time of writing this answer):

  • Make sure you don't transform away import statements by setting transform: {} in your jest config file
  • Run node@^12.16.0 || >=13.2.0 with --experimental-vm-modules flag
  • Run your test with jest-environment-node or jest-environment-jsdom-sixteen.

So your jest config file should contain at least this:

export default {
    testEnvironment: 'jest-environment-node',
    transform: {}
    ...
};

And to set --experimental-vm-modules flag, you will have to run Jest from package.json as follows (I hope this will change in the future):

"scripts": {
    "test": "node --experimental-vm-modules node_modules/jest/bin/jest.js"
}

I hope, this answer was helpful to you.


I followed the tips provided in the accepted answer, but I added the property "type": "module" in my package.json in order to jest works properly. This is what I done:

In package.json:

"devDependencies": {
    "jest": "^26.1.0",
    "jest-environment-jsdom-sixteen": "^1.0.3",
    "jest-environment-node": "^26.1.0"
  },
  "scripts": {
    "test": "node --experimental-vm-modules node_modules/jest/bin/jest.js"
  },
  "type": "module",
  "jest": {
    "transform": {},
    "testEnvironment": "jest-environment-jsdom-sixteen"
  }