Reference metadata describe statistical concepts and methodologies used for the collection and generation of data. They provide information on data quality and, since they are strongly content-oriented, assist users in interpreting the data. Reference metadata, unlike structural metadata, can be decoupled from the data.
Business Register Research and Innovation, National Statistics Office, Lascaris, Valletta, Malta
Short-term Business Statistics, National Statistics Office, Lascaris, Valletta, Malta
1.6. Contact email address
Confidential because of GDPR
1.7. Contact phone number
Confidential because of GDPR
1.8. Contact fax number
Confidential because of GDPR
2.1. Metadata last certified
13 June 2025
2.2. Metadata last posted
13 June 2025
2.3. Metadata last update
13 June 2025
3.1. Data description
The Quarterly Business Demogrpahy (QBD) statistics cover the following variables:
Variable 110101: Registrations
Variable 110102: Bankruptcies
The statisitcs are based on existing administrative data.
3.2. Classification system
NACE rev.2
3.3. Coverage - sector
BTSXO_S94
Industry, construction and services (except public administration and defence; compulsory social security; activities of households as employers; undifferentiated goods- and services-producing activities of households for own use; activities of extraterritorial organisations and bodies; activities of membership organisations)
B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,P,Q,R,S95,S96
BTE
Industry (except construction)
B,C,D,E
F
Construction
F41,F42,F43
G
Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles
G45,G46,G47
H
Transportation and storage
H49,H50,H51,H52,H53
I
Accommodation and food service activities
I55,I56
J
Information and communication
J58,J59,J60,J61,J62,J63
KTN
Financial and insurance activities; real estate activities; professional, scientific and technical activities; administrative and support service activities
K,L,M,N
PTSXS94
Education; human health and social work activities (except activities of membership organisations)
P,Q,R,S95,S96
3.4. Statistical concepts and definitions
Variable 110101: Registrations
The number of entered legal units in the registration register at any time during the reference quarter q, according to the respective administrative or legal procedure.
Variable 110102: Bankruptcies
The number of legal units that have started the procedure of being declared bankrupt, by issuing a court declaration at any time during the reference quarter (which is often provisional and does not always mean cessation of an activity).
3.5. Statistical unit
Legal unit
3.6. Statistical population
The new business registrations data and the bankruptcy data include limited liability companies, public limited liability companies, sole proprietors, partnerships, corporations, cooperatives and joint ventures.
3.7. Reference area
Malta
3.8. Coverage - Time
The new registrations and bankruptcy data is availabe from 2015 onwards.
3.9. Base period
2021 when published in the form of an index.
The unit of measure is "pure number" of registrations and declarations of bankruptcies. When published by Eurostat, the data is in index form with base year 2021.
Registrations and declarations of bankruptcies refer to one quarter.
6.1. Institutional Mandate - legal acts and other agreements
EBS Regulation No 2019/2152, Table 1 of the Commission implementing regulation No 2020/1197.
6.2. Institutional Mandate - data sharing
Data (pure numbers) are sent to Eurostat
7.1. Confidentiality - policy
Quarterly new business registrations and declarations of bankruptcies data is public.
What is the national legislation describing the statistical confidentiality?
The NSO requests information for the compilation of official statistics according to the articles of the MSA Act – Cap. 422 and the Data Protection Act – Cap. 586 of the Laws of Malta implementing the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).
Article 40 of the MSA Act stipulates the restrictions on the use of information while Article 41 stipulates the prohibition of disclosure of information. Furthermore, Section IX of the Act (Offences and Penalties) lays down the measures to be taken in case of unlawful exercise of any officer of statistics regarding confidentiality of data.
7.2. Confidentiality - data treatment
Not applicable for new business registrations and bankruptcy data.
8.1. Release calendar
The Registered Business units news release of Malta features the new business registrations on an annual basis.
QBD data (absolute values) are transmitted to Eurostat within 40 days after the reference period. The transmission is done by eDAMIS using the SDMX format.
Regular consultations are held between the internal users of the new registrations data including National Accounts, Business Register, Short term statistics and SBS.
12.2. Relevance - User Satisfaction
Not applicable
12.3. Completeness
The new registrations and bankruptcy data is availabe from 2015 onwards. It is to be noted that on 1 January 2011, the Value Added Tax (Exemption from Registration) Regulations, which states that the VAT Commissioner shall not register any taxable person established in Malta whose turnover does not exceed 7,000 in a calendar year, came into force, as notified in Legal Notice 524 of 2010. On 1 January 2015, this regulation was reversed as notified in Legal Notice 67 of 2015. The actual new registrations data for 2015 quarter 1 and quarter 2 was significantly higher than that in subsequent years, within NACE section G and NACE section K to N, and so an estimate was calculated. The estimate is based on the average growth in the number of new registrations, between 2016 and 2019. Apart from this estimate, actual data is disseminated for all the variables, for all the reference periods.
13.1. Accuracy - overall
The new business registrations data is deemed as very accurate since it is derived on a timely basis from administrative sources.
The bankruptcy data is derived from the following bankrupcty registers of Malta, available at ecourts and MBR. The quarterly bankruptcy data of Malta is flagged as provisional.
13.2. Sampling error
As quarterly business demography indicators are "event based" statistics based on complete enumeration, sampling error is not applicable.
13.3. Non-sampling error
The registration delays might be a source of errors, in particular for the declaration of bankruptcies. There might be a delay longer than 40 days for registereing a declaration of bankruptcy for the reference quarter ("data collection and access error"). There might also be a delay for a registered declaration of bankruptcy to feature in the Insolvencies databases. Normally this would appear as an upward revision in the subsequent quarter.
14.1. Timeliness
Q+40days
14.2. Punctuality
The data is disseminated to Eurostat punctually.
15.1. Comparability - geographical
The registrations and declarations of bankruptcies by sole proprietors are also included in the national data.
15.2. Comparability - over time
It is to be noted that on 1 January 2011, the Value Added Tax (Exemption from Registration) Regulations, which states that the VAT Commissioner shall not register any taxable person established in Malta whose turnover does not exceed 7,000 in a calendar year, came into force, as notified in Legal Notice 524 of 2010. On 1 January 2015, this regulation was reversed as notified in Legal Notice 67 of 2015. The actual new registrations data for 2015 quarter 1 and quarter 2 was significantly higher than that in subsequent years, within NACE section G and NACE section K to N, and so an estimate was calculated. The estimate is based on the average growth in the number of new registrations, between 2016 and 2019. Apart from this estimate, actual data is disseminated for all the variables, for all the reference periods. The new registrations and bankruptcy data is comparable over time.
15.3. Coherence - cross domain
The quarterly new registrations data and the annual business demography data cannot be directly comparable. The main reason for this is attributable to the differences in the definitions. Whilst the quarterly business demography data focuses on the legal units, the annual business demography data focuses on the enterprise unit.
Sum of the quarterly new registrations for year t > New registrations in year t forming part of the birth population
Sum of the quarterly new registrations for year t = Births in t – new registrations in t-1 but started operations in t – births due to reactivations + excluded mergers + New registrations excluded from the active population in year t.
Sum of the quarterly new registrations for year t = New registrations in year t forming part of the birth population + New registrations excluded from the active population in year t.
Bankruptcies are not necessarily a subset of the enterprise deaths since enterprises that feature in the insolvency register do not necessarily feature in the death population. There is no relationship between enterprise deaths and bankruptcies.
15.4. Coherence - internal
For quarterly business demography data, the aggregates should be coherent with the lower level NACE activities.
Not applicable
17.1. Data revision - policy
The quarterly new business registrations data and the bankruptcies data corresponding to year t shall be revised on a yearly basis at t+22 months.
The same revision policy is applied both nationally and in the transmission to Eurostat.
17.2. Data revision - practice
The number of bankruptcies for a particular quarter is usually less than 5, and so any minor revisions in the bankruptcy data results in high percentage revisions.
Revsions higher than five per cent were observed as follows:
The fundamental administrative sources for the Statistical business register population are the VAT department and the Registry of Companies (ROC) in the Malta Business Registry (MBR).
The bankruptcy data is derived from the following online bankrupcty registers of Malta, available at ecourts and MBR. The NACE code data of the bankrupt units is in line with the Statistical business register.
18.2. Frequency of data collection
The new registrations data is collected on a monthly basis.
The bankrupcty data is available online and is collected on a quarterly basis.
18.3. Data collection
The VAT department and the Registry of Companies (ROC) in the Malta Business Registry (MBR) provide a list of all the newly registered legal units which are then added in the Statistical business register. The new business registrations data consists of limted liability companies as well as sole proprietors. Limited liability companies are derived through the MBR monthly new registrations data that is provided by the MBR in line with an official memorandum agreement betweent NSO and MBR. The sole proprietors new registrations data is provided by the VAT department, in line with an official memorandum agreement between NSO and MBR.
The bankruptcy data is extracted from the online bankrupcty registers of Malta, available at ecourts and MBR. The NACE code data of the bankrupt units is in line with the Statistical business register.
18.4. Data validation
It is ensured that no duplicate units feature in the new registrations and in the bankruptcy data. Prior to the dissemination to Eurostat, NACE hierarchical checks as well as completeness checks are performed.
18.5. Data compilation
The micro data corresponding to the new business registrations data in the required quarter, is extracted from the statistical business register and saved in an excel sheet. An aggregate of the business unit split by the required NACE sections is compiled. It is then presented the required dissemination format.
18.6. Adjustment
Seasonal adjustment is not requested.
No additional comments.
The Quarterly Business Demogrpahy (QBD) statistics cover the following variables:
Variable 110101: Registrations
Variable 110102: Bankruptcies
The statisitcs are based on existing administrative data.
13 June 2025
Variable 110101: Registrations
The number of entered legal units in the registration register at any time during the reference quarter q, according to the respective administrative or legal procedure.
Variable 110102: Bankruptcies
The number of legal units that have started the procedure of being declared bankrupt, by issuing a court declaration at any time during the reference quarter (which is often provisional and does not always mean cessation of an activity).
Legal unit
The new business registrations data and the bankruptcy data include limited liability companies, public limited liability companies, sole proprietors, partnerships, corporations, cooperatives and joint ventures.
Malta
Registrations and declarations of bankruptcies refer to one quarter.
The new business registrations data is deemed as very accurate since it is derived on a timely basis from administrative sources.
The bankruptcy data is derived from the following bankrupcty registers of Malta, available at ecourts and MBR. The quarterly bankruptcy data of Malta is flagged as provisional.
The unit of measure is "pure number" of registrations and declarations of bankruptcies. When published by Eurostat, the data is in index form with base year 2021.
The micro data corresponding to the new business registrations data in the required quarter, is extracted from the statistical business register and saved in an excel sheet. An aggregate of the business unit split by the required NACE sections is compiled. It is then presented the required dissemination format.
The fundamental administrative sources for the Statistical business register population are the VAT department and the Registry of Companies (ROC) in the Malta Business Registry (MBR).
The bankruptcy data is derived from the following online bankrupcty registers of Malta, available at ecourts and MBR. The NACE code data of the bankrupt units is in line with the Statistical business register.
Annually for the national release of the new business registrations; Currenlty quarterly for transmissions to Eurostat.
Q+40days
The registrations and declarations of bankruptcies by sole proprietors are also included in the national data.
It is to be noted that on 1 January 2011, the Value Added Tax (Exemption from Registration) Regulations, which states that the VAT Commissioner shall not register any taxable person established in Malta whose turnover does not exceed 7,000 in a calendar year, came into force, as notified in Legal Notice 524 of 2010. On 1 January 2015, this regulation was reversed as notified in Legal Notice 67 of 2015. The actual new registrations data for 2015 quarter 1 and quarter 2 was significantly higher than that in subsequent years, within NACE section G and NACE section K to N, and so an estimate was calculated. The estimate is based on the average growth in the number of new registrations, between 2016 and 2019. Apart from this estimate, actual data is disseminated for all the variables, for all the reference periods. The new registrations and bankruptcy data is comparable over time.
