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Turnover in services (sts_os_t)

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National Reference Metadata in Euro SDMX Metadata Structure (ESMS)

Compiling agency: Federal Statistical Office (DESTATIS)

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General remark:

Information related to the monthly indicator for Section I is marked with “A)” and related to the monthly indicator for Sections H, J, L, M and N with “B)”. Information that is applicable to both indices has no indication at all.

 

The turnover indices are part of the overall STS indicator system which supports business cycle observation. The objective of these indices is to show the development of the market for goods and services via totals invoiced.

Turnover indices comprise:

A) Monthly indices of accommodation and food service activities.

B) Monthly indices of turnover for the service sector.

19 May 2025

The objective of the turnover index is to show the development of the market for goods and services. Turnover comprises the totals invoiced by the observation unit during the reference period, and corresponds to market sales of goods or services supplied to third parties. Turnover also includes all other charges (transport, packaging, etc.) passed on to the customer, even if these charges are listed separately in the invoice. Turnover excludes VAT and other similar deductible taxes directly linked to turnover as well as all duties and taxes on the goods or services invoiced by the unit.

Legal unit.

All relevant statistical units in the business register, i.e. all legal units with at least EUR 17,500 turnover and/or at least one employee and with their main economic activity in one of the NACE-Sections mentioned above.

Country as a whole. There are no units located in Germany which are excluded from the sales figures. The turnover index does not cover legally independent affiliates abroad or branches abroad.

Month

Main sources for errors or potential for bias in the calculation of the turnover index are induced by survey data, in particular unit/item non response, over and under coverage, incorrect classified units in the sample frame, implausible data, incorrect signing of the non-response case and inappropriate estimation of missing values.

Errors in administrative data might be different observation units (e. g. tax groups), incorrect classification, implausible data, deviations in the definitions, modifications of the legal basis of the administrative data or in the delivery format, lack of timeliness and completeness (dependence), no unique identifier (statistical identity number differs from the identity number of the administrative data source) and metadata not up-to-date for linking with the business register.

Index.

A) Non-response or missing values due to late response are estimated. The values of enterprises that provide late information are estimated as part of the automatic plausibility checks using the relation between the information of the preceding three months and the same month last year. The estimates are replaced by the correct values after the late response is received.

In 2010 three estimation methods had been introduced: S30, S60 and S70. The best estimation method will be identified for each missing value.

S30: The method is suited for enterprises whose turnover has seasonal patterns. Turnover of the same month last year is updated with a trend component which is specific to each enterprise.

S60: Missing turnover values for a specific enterprise are updated with the turnover trend of enterprises from the same NACE Class (4-digit). The turnover trend is defined as the quotient of the current year’s and previous year’s turnover.

S70: This method is suitable for enterprises whose turnover development is comparable with values of the previous month instead of the previous year. Estimation uses the median turnover from one or more previous months.

Method of weighting and chaining use the fact that indices for retail trade turnover are self-weighting indices (relation current month value/mean monthly value of the base year*100).

B) Indices are compiled by the change rate to the same month of the previous year on the 4-digit-level of the NACE Rev. 2. The aggregation to higher levels takes place by using STS-weights.

The data set of Section I is based on a sample survey.

The data set of Sections G, H, J, L, M and N is based on a mix-model that combines data from a statistical survey with administrative data. In Sections H, J, L, M and N all legal units with at least 250 persons employed and/or at least 15 million annual turnover (in the business register) are surveyed primarily. Administrative data are used for all other units. Hence, it is a full coverage. Units that are primarily surveyed are selected once a year.

The administrative data source for turnover is the turnover tax advance return by regional tax offices. There are some differences in the definition (e.g. extraordinary income is included) and in the observation unit because of different purposes of collecting the respective data. For instance, some legal units form a tax group and report as one unit. However, their turnover tax advance return must be assigned to the relevant observation unit in the tax group.

Monthly

A) Results for Section I are published 45 days after the end of the reference period (t+45).

B) Results for section H, J, L, M and N are published 65 days after the end of the reference period (t+65).

The turnover index for “other service activities” is geographically comparable. However, the comparability between Member States cannot be guaranteed due to different methods applied by Member States.

A) Consistent data are available since 1994.

B) Consistent data are available since 2009. The comparability before 2009 is restricted since data conversion to NACE Rev. 2 led to different levels of quality of the converted indices in different industries. In contrast, the switch from a sample to a mix-model in 2007 did not affect comparability.