Let X be a smooth projective curve of genus g, defined over an algebraically closed field k, and let G be a connected reductive group over k. We say that a G-torsor is essentially finite if it admits a reduction to a finite group, generalising the notion of essentially finite vector bundles to arbitrary groups G. We prove that all such G-torsors are (strongly) semistable of torsion degree, and we then study the density of the set of k-points of essentially finite G-torsors of degree 0, denoted M ef,0 G , inside M ss,0 G , the k-points of all semistable degree 0 G-torsors. We show that when g = 1, M ef,0 G ⊂ M ss,0 G is dense. When g > 1 and when char(k) = 0, we show that for any reductive group of semisimple rank 1, M ef,0 G ⊂ M ss,0 G is not dense.