We report a deep X-ray survey of the young (~140Myr), rich open cluster NGC 2516 obtained with the EPIC camera on board the XMM-Newton satellite. By combining data from six observations, a high sensitivity, greater than a factor of 5 with respect to recent Chandra observations, has been achieved. Kaplan-Meier estimators of the cumulative X-ray luminosity distribution are built, statistically corrected for non members contaminants and compared to those of the nearly coeval Pleiades. The EPIC spectra of the X-ray brightest stars are fitted using optically thin model plasma with one or two thermal components. We detected 431 X-ray sources and 234 of them have as optical counterparts cluster stars spanning the entire NGC 2516 Main Sequence.