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.
Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union
1.2. Contact organisation unit
Unit G2 - European Businesses
1.3. Contact name
Confidential because of GDPR
1.4. Contact person function
Confidential because of GDPR
1.5. Contact mail address
BECH Building, 5, rue Alphonse Weicker, L-2721 Luxembourg
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
8 September 2025
2.2. Metadata last posted
8 September 2025
2.3. Metadata last update
8 September 2025
3.1. Data description
Structural business statistics (SBS) describe the structure, conduct and performance of economic activities, down to the most detailed activity level (several hundred economic sectors). The EU Member States transmit SBS annually to the European Commission (Eurostat) based on European legislation. SBS covers all activities of the business economy with the exception of agricultural activities, public administration and largely non-market services such as education and health. The data is provided by all EU Member States, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland, some candidate and potential candidate countries. Most data is collected by National Statistical Institutes (NSIs) through statistical surveys, business registers or various administrative sources. Regulatory or controlling national offices for financial institutions or central banks often provide the information required for the financial sector (NACE Rev 2 Section K). Member States apply various statistical methods - such as grossing up, model based estimation or different forms of imputation - according to the data source to ensure the quality of SBS produced.
Main characteristics (variables) of the SBS data category:
"Business Demographic" variables (e.g. Number of active enterprises)
"Output related" variables (e.g. Net turnover, Value added)
"Input related" variables: labour input (e.g. Employment, Hours worked); goods and services input (e.g. Purchases of goods and services); capital input (e.g. Gross investments)
All SBS characteristics are published on Eurostat’s website in tables. An example of the existent tables is presented below:
Annual enterprise statistics broken down by size classes: SBS data is published by country and employment size class (0-9; 10-19; 20-49; 50-249; 250 persons employed or more), again broken down by detailed economic activity, group level (3-digits). Additional size classes 0-1 and 2-9 persons employed are available for NACE Rev 2 Sections F to J, L to N and P to R and divisions S95 and S96 only for variables "Number of active enterprises" and "Number of employees and self-employed persons". For trade (NACE Rev 2 Section G) a supplementary breakdown by size class of turnover is available.
Annual enterprise statistics: SBS data is published by country and detailed economic activity (NACE Rev 2) class level (4-digits) and special aggregates.
Annual/bi-annual business services statistics: "Net turnover by product" and "Net turnover by residence of client" are published by country and detailed down to NACE Rev 2 group level (3-digits). The statistics on “Net turnover by product” permit analysis of products' relative importance in the turnover, consistency of product level statistics and product specialisation. On the other hand, information on “Turnover by residence of client” enable analysis of the type and location of clients and client specialisation.
Annual regional statistics: Three characteristics are published by NUTS-2 country regions and detailed on NACE Rev 2 division level (2-digits).
Starting from the reference year 2023, voluntary data in new size classes called Small-Mid Caps (i.e. 250-499 and 500 and more persons employed) of selected SBS variables are transmitted by Member States and published together with legal size classes in a new Eurostat table.
Several important derived indicators are generated in the form of ratios of certain monetary characteristics or per head values. A list with the available derived indicators is available in the Annexes.
3.2. Classification system
Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community (NACE): NACE Rev.2 is used from 2008 onwards.
Starting with reference year 2021, SBS cover the economic activities of market producers within the NACE Rev. 2 Sections B to N, P to R and Divisions S95 and S96. This includes mining and quarrying, industry, supply and sewerage, construction, trade, and most of the service activities. SBS do not cover agriculture, forestry and fishing, nor public administration and (largely) non-market services such as education and health.
For Business Services statistics, SBS cover enterprises with more than 20 employees and self-employed persons only and
NACE Rev 2 divisions 62, 78 and groups 58.2, 63.1, 73.1 annually
NACE Rev 2 groups 69.1, 69.2 and 70.2 (from reference year 2021) and groups 71.1, 71.2 and 73.2 (from reference year 2022) bi-annually
3.4. Statistical concepts and definitions
SBS describe the activity structure, conduct and performance of businesses in the Member States of the European Union (EU). Given their coverage, SBS represent the statistical source providing the most comprehensive picture of the European economy, both at national and aggregated EU level. Structural Business Statistics (SBS) describe the economy through the observation of units engaged in an economic activity. They answer such questions as: how much wealth is created in an economic activity? What workforce is needed to create this wealth? Is this activity contributing to the growth of the economy? How much investment is made in this activity?
Compared to the data requirements of the previous European Regulation on SBS of 2008, the new EBS Regulation has incorporated the following changes :
improved the coverage of the services sector;
extended the coverage of collected variables;
provision of preliminary data by size class for 3 variables;
restructured data requirements for the financial and insurance activities sector;
applied simplifying measures.
Due to the integrated approach of the EBS Regulation, the statistical domains as previously known are no longer explicitly found there but can be identified at the level of topics and detailed topics, the levels below the new statistical domains. The EBS Regulation distinguishes four statistical domains:
(a) Short-term statistics (b) Country-level business statistics (c) Regional business statistics (d) Statistics on international activities.
SBS is embedded in domain b) ‘Country-level business statistics’ and in domain c) ‘Regional business statistics’.
The 45 variables constituting the SBS part of the EBS Regulation can be allocated to 5 topics:
Business population;
Labour inputs;
Purchases;
Outputs and performance;
Investments.
These topics are further subdivided into 15 detailed topics. Ten tables define the structure of the actual data requirements of SBS, both at the country level (EBS GIA Tables 10, 11, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28) and at the regional level (EBS GIA table 29).
the product specialisation is defined as a share of the most important product in the total turnover of an enterprise in the following way:
a) the most important product is consistent with the main activity of the enterprise and
b) the most important product comprises at least 75% of its total net turnover.
the client specialisation is defined as a share of the three biggest clients in total turnover:
a) Non-specialised: [0% - 50%]
b) Medium specialised: [50% - 75%]
c) Highly specialised: [75% - 100%]
3.5. Statistical unit
Only two statistical units apply in SBS: the enterprise for the country-level business statistics data and the local unit for the regional business data.
The definition of an enterprise is provided by the Statistical Unit Regulation (Council Regulation (EEC) No 696 / 93) as follows: "The enterprise is the smallest combination of legal units that is an organisational unit producing goods or services, which benefits from a certain degree of autonomy in decision-making, especially for the allocation of its current resources. An enterprise carries out one or more activities at one or more locations. An enterprise may be a sole legal unit."
In business statistics, the term enterprise should always be used in the sense of a ‘statistical enterprise’. This means, through definition, one aims to create a statistical unit that would allow one to compile harmonised data, irrespective of the actual organisational and legal structures of the economic agents. In the past, mainly until reference year 2018, many Member States used the ‘legal unit’ as a proxy for the ‘enterprise’. The transition from the ‘legal unit’ to the ‘enterprise’ may have caused breaks in the series of the SBS characteristics, for example an enterprise consisting of several legal units will only be counted once and intraflows between the legal units within the enterprise will be eliminated (consolidated) in SBS statistics.
The local unit is defined in the Statistical Unit Regulation as follows: "The local unit is an enterprises or part thereof (e.g., a workshop, factory, warehouse, office, mine or deport) situated in a geographical identified place. At or from this place economic activity is carried out for which – save for certain exceptions – one or more persons work (even if only part time) for one and the same enterprise."
Structural business statistics (SBS) cover the economic activities of market producers within the business economy NACE Rev. 2 Sections B to N, P to R and Divisions S95 and S96. This includes mining and quarrying, industry, supply and sewerage, construction, trade, and most of the service activities. SBS do not cover agriculture, forestry and fishing, nor public administration and largely non-market services such as education and health.
3.7. Reference area
The data category covers EU Member States, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and some EU Candidate and potential candidate countries.
3.8. Coverage - Time
1995 is the first reference year for SBS implementation and the period between 1995 and 1998 was a transitional period for SBS implementation.
The data set is more complete and comparable starting from reference year 1999. European aggregates are available for most important characteristics and tables from reference year 1999 onwards.
The Council Regulation No 58/97 has been amended three times: by Council Regulation No 410/98, Commission Regulation No 1614/2002 and European Parliament and Council Regulation No 2056/2002. As a new amendment of the basic Regulation, it was decided to recast the Regulation No 58/97 in order to obtain a new "clean" legal text. In 2008 the European Parliament and Council adopted Regulation No 295/2008 and the provisions of this Regulation are applicable from the reference year 2008 to reference year 2020. Regulation No 295/2008 was amended by Commission Regulation (EU) No 446/2014.
6.2. Institutional Mandate - data sharing
Eurostat makes available all non-confidential and sufficiently reliable data on its dissemination website.
7.1. Confidentiality - policy
Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics (recital 24 and Article 20(4)) of 11 March 2009, stipulates the need to establish common principles and guidelines ensuring the confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those confidential data with due account for technical developments and the requirements of users in a democratic society.
7.2. Confidentiality - data treatment
If data are of truly confidential nature according to the above mentioned regulation, they have to be flagged confidential, and they will not be published by Eurostat.
Eurostat makes available all non-confidential data on its dissemination website.
In the tables disseminated on the Eurostat website, a cell is confidential if it is primary or secondary confidential. A cell is primary confidential if
the extrapolated number of contributors is positive but less than a specified number that is referred to as the "minimum threshold". In other words, a minimum number of contributors in a cell is required for the data in that cell to be published;
a well-informed intruder, i.e., the second largest contributor, can estimate the value of the largest contributor within a chosen percentage, p%, of the true value of the largest contributor.
A cell is secondary confidential if it can be used with marginal totals to disclose primary confidential cells.
To compute the EU aggregate Eurostat determine primary confidentiality following the reported rules that must be applied sequentially:
If there is only one Member State with confidential data, the EU aggregate is primary confidential.
If there are two Member States with confidential data and the number of enterprises for one (or both) of them is one, the EU aggregate is primary confidential.
If one Member State dominates the confidential part of data, the EU aggregate is primary confidential.
Each individual Member State dominates the data if the share of the Primary confidential value of this Member States in the total confidential value (Primary confidential + Secondary confidential) for a specific cell is higher than the settled dominance percentage for that Member State
Formula of the share: value of the country >= threshold * sum of the confidential values for all countries
The thresholds are defined for each country. They can be updated by the end-user in the production tool
After the Primary Confidentiality of the EU aggregate has been identified, it is necessary to determine the Secondary Confidentiality. The secondary confidentiality is determined in a corporate tool (Tau argus).
8.1. Release calendar
Preliminary data are published one year after the end of the reference year (T+12 months).
Countries final data are published less than two years after the end of the reference year (T+20 months).
EU aggregates are published soon after the countries final data are published.
8.2. Release calendar access
Please consult the online release calendar on Eurostat website, under "Industry, Trade and Services" theme.
8.3. Release policy - user access
In line with the Community legal framework and the European Statistics Code of Practice Eurostat disseminates European statistics on Eurostat's website (see item 10 - 'Accessibility and clarity') respecting professional independence and in an objective, professional and transparent manner in which all users are treated equitably. The detailed arrangements are governed by the Eurostat protocol on impartial access to Eurostat data for users.
Annual, however, for some specific sectors the information is available only on a multi-yearly basis.
10.1. Dissemination format - News release
News releases can be found on Eurostat's website in the section 'News articles'.
As from the reference year 2008 Member States have been providing Eurostat with regular (annual) quality reports covering most of the categories of the ESS Standard for Quality Reports, Eurostat prepares a summary quality reports which is discussed in a yearly meeting with Member States.
11.2. Quality management - assessment
According to the information available from the quality reports, the data providers have applied the recommendations available in the EU Regulations.
12.1. Relevance - User Needs
The main users of SBS data, the Commission policy DGs, are consulted in order to identify unfulfilled user needs.
12.2. Relevance - User Satisfaction
An indicator of the usefulness of SBS data is the number of sessions (a session starts with the first event and ends 30 minutes after the last event) and the page views of the SBS data on the Eurostat website: in 2024 58,232 sessions with 190,213 page views have been registered for SBS tables. Visitors performed more than 160 sessions per day with around 521 pages visited.
12.3. Completeness
For reference year 2023 overall 99% of the data required by the EBS Regulation was provided by all the countries (Member States, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland, some candidate and potential candidate countries). All non-confidential data has been published.
13.1. Accuracy - overall
The SBS Regulation is an output-oriented regulation, leaving data providers the choice of data sources. In most countries a combination of survey and administrative data is used.
13.2. Sampling error
For the data covered by surveys the coefficients of variation are transmitted by the countries.
The coefficients of variation for three indicators - Number of persons employed and self employed persons, Net turnover and Value added - are available in the Synthesis Quality Report in Annexes.
13.3. Non-sampling error
The unweighted and weighted response rate are provided by countries and are available in the Synthesis Quality Report in Annexes
14.1. Timeliness
Preliminary and final data are disseminated respectively 2 and 4 months after legal deadline transmission from the countries.
14.2. Punctuality
Final data ought to be transmitted to Eurostat 18 months after the end of the reference period (T). Preliminary data should be transmitted to Eurostat 10 months after the end of the reference period. Punctuality has improved over time.
15.1. Comparability - geographical
Some methodological factors that limit the comparisons across countries can be found in the National metadata at the top right of the page.
15.2. Comparability - over time
To assess the inter-temporal comparability of SBS data, it should be investigated whether the same concepts and methods are applied. In case data is not comparable there might be a break in time series. Particular reasons for breaks in time series in SBS data are the implementation of EBS regulation (for reference year 2021), the implementation of statistical unit enterprise (for most of the countries for reference year 2018), changes in NACE classification (for reference year 2008).
15.3. Coherence - cross domain
Non confidential national and EU data are released at the finest possible level of detail. Yet the general principle "the higher the level of aggregation (the more aggregated the data), the better the quality" applies to SBS. Detailed data for small countries have to be used with a certain caution.
Data on Structural Business Statistics can be found in the following related domains: regional statistics, environmental protection expenditure statistics, research and development statistics, labour cost statistics, labour force survey, European business trends, short-term statistics, culture and sport statistics.
In these collections data similar to SBS can be found. It should be noted that methodological differences exist which can explain inconsistencies. Apparent inconsistencies between SBS data and the data from labour cost statistics, labour force survey and short-term statistics have been examined.
The OECD also collects and disseminates enterprise statistics in its Structural Business Statistics Database, containing the database known as SSIS (Structural Statistics for Industry and Services) and SEC (Statistics by Enterprise Size Class). In order to reduce the response burden on member countries and to harmonise SBS data collections between Eurostat and OECD, since 2004 the OECD sources data from Eurostat for EU countries (according to the terms of a "Memorandum of Understanding" signed by both organisations).
15.4. Coherence - internal
The internal consistency of the data (links between variables, coherence between data series,...) is checked by Eurostat before dissemination.
In between Eurostat releases, Member States may revise their figures; Eurostat publishes the new Member States' figures together with the last reference year, at the latest, but does not recalculate the EU aggregates until the next scheduled EU release. Geographical coherence may thus be lost for a brief period. In turn, a certain stability of annual aggregates is assured.
Article 4 of the EBS Regulation stipulates that, in producing European statistics, Member States may use any relevant data sources while avoiding excessive burden on respondents and taking due account of the cost-effectiveness of the national statistical authority. Furthermore, Article 5 states that the national statistical authorities shall have the right to access and use, promptly and free of charge, all administrative records, and to integrate those records with other data sources, so as to meet the statistical requirements of the EBS Regulation. Both articles are central as they set the basis for supporting cost-effectiveness and reducing unnecessary burden on respondents. SBS is a statistical domain that has a relatively low response burden. It is an annual data collection, administrative data are widely used, and various variables can directly be taken from the annual company reports.
All reported errors (once validated) result in corrections of the disseminated data.
Reported errors are corrected in the disseminated data as soon as the correct data have been validated.
Data are only published once they are deemed to be sufficiently complete for all data providers.
Whenever new data are provided and validated, the already disseminated data are updated.
18.1. Source data
The Structural Business Statistics (SBS) data is collected through statistical surveys, from the business register or from administrative sources. National Statistical Institutes (NSIs) can use one or several of these sources, according to the survey strategy they have adopted, taking into account the costs, the quality and the response burden on enterprises.
Statistical surveys: the NSI sends questionnaires to the enterprises, legal units or local units surveyed. They send these questionnaires either to all enterprises (exhaustive survey) or to a sample of enterprises. Very often, samples are used for smaller enterprises while large enterprises are all surveyed. This is called stratified sampling with an inclusion probability depending on size of the unit.
Administrative sources: they are typically maintained by the tax and social security authorities. They are used as a source by the NSI to comply with the SBS regulation requirements. Administrative sources have the advantage of reducing the response burden on enterprises; however, in most cases they don't contain all variables required. Moreover, the parameters sampled generally don't coincide exactly with the definition of the statistical characteristics they are used as a proxy of.
Business register: it provides the information that can be used for the SBS data collection (number of enterprises) and contains some basic characteristics (NACE activity code, employment, turnover) used for sample stratification, for inference or for calibration.
18.2. Frequency of data collection
Annual data is requested. Some characteristics on a specific sector, which is burdensome to collect, are covered on a multi-annual basis.
18.3. Data collection
As far as statistical surveys are concerned, large businesses are completely enumerated whereas small businesses are usually sampled only.
Data are acquired by interviewing the sampled enterprises directly mainly by web interviews and self-administered questionnaires and/or by telephone interviews.
18.4. Data validation
Prior to the dissemination, Eurostat executes data validation on the SBS datasets received from the national data providers and on the computed EU aggregates.
National data is validated on the basis of structural and content validation rules annually agreed with the SBS Working Group.
A number of logical checks between different variables, consistency checks on totals and subtotals, identification and review of apparent outlying result and consistency of data over time are checked as well. Please refer to Annex 4 of the Methodological manual on European Structural Business Statistics – 2024 edition (p. 221) for a documented list of quality checks.
In case of doubts, Eurostat staff contacts the respective technical national correspondents to confirm or correct the data. In some cases, this action gives rise to more explanatory information being made available in the national metadata reports.
The validation of the national qualitative metadata files implies the verification of the correctness and exhaustiveness of the information provided, according to the ESS quality requirements and some specific SBS quality guidelines that Eurostat makes annually available to editors when the metadata collection is officially launched.
18.5. Data compilation
The European aggregate EU27_2020 for European Union includes 27 countries and is available from reference year 2011 onwards.
European aggregates are calculated for most characteristics, typically broken down by economic activity, and for some characteristics also by size class. These aggregates are disseminated twice a year in Q4, coinciding with the release of final data and preliminary data.
When the aggregates are based on incomplete coverage, estimates may be published. In such cases, the data are flagged with the symbol"e" to indicate an estimated value. This estimation is applied when the difference — calculated as ABS (rounded_value – real_value) / real_value * 100 — is less than or equal to 5%.
In order to protect confidential data at the national level some of EU aggregates are rounded. This way the confidential data at national level can only be determined with a very high error margin, the EU aggregates are however still acceptably accurate. A consequence of this method to hide confidential national data is that the breakdown of the data for a certain activity level into more detailed activities does not correspond fully with the figure provided for this activity level.
18.6. Adjustment
Monetary characteristics of the different countries are converted to and/or rounded to millions of euro.
Due to different revision policy for the European aggregates and the Member States' data, there may be a difference between the European aggregate and the appropriate sum of national data between updates.
Structural business statistics (SBS) describe the structure, conduct and performance of economic activities, down to the most detailed activity level (several hundred economic sectors). The EU Member States transmit SBS annually to the European Commission (Eurostat) based on European legislation. SBS covers all activities of the business economy with the exception of agricultural activities, public administration and largely non-market services such as education and health. The data is provided by all EU Member States, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland, some candidate and potential candidate countries. Most data is collected by National Statistical Institutes (NSIs) through statistical surveys, business registers or various administrative sources. Regulatory or controlling national offices for financial institutions or central banks often provide the information required for the financial sector (NACE Rev 2 Section K). Member States apply various statistical methods - such as grossing up, model based estimation or different forms of imputation - according to the data source to ensure the quality of SBS produced.
Main characteristics (variables) of the SBS data category:
"Business Demographic" variables (e.g. Number of active enterprises)
"Output related" variables (e.g. Net turnover, Value added)
"Input related" variables: labour input (e.g. Employment, Hours worked); goods and services input (e.g. Purchases of goods and services); capital input (e.g. Gross investments)
All SBS characteristics are published on Eurostat’s website in tables. An example of the existent tables is presented below:
Annual enterprise statistics broken down by size classes: SBS data is published by country and employment size class (0-9; 10-19; 20-49; 50-249; 250 persons employed or more), again broken down by detailed economic activity, group level (3-digits). Additional size classes 0-1 and 2-9 persons employed are available for NACE Rev 2 Sections F to J, L to N and P to R and divisions S95 and S96 only for variables "Number of active enterprises" and "Number of employees and self-employed persons". For trade (NACE Rev 2 Section G) a supplementary breakdown by size class of turnover is available.
Annual enterprise statistics: SBS data is published by country and detailed economic activity (NACE Rev 2) class level (4-digits) and special aggregates.
Annual/bi-annual business services statistics: "Net turnover by product" and "Net turnover by residence of client" are published by country and detailed down to NACE Rev 2 group level (3-digits). The statistics on “Net turnover by product” permit analysis of products' relative importance in the turnover, consistency of product level statistics and product specialisation. On the other hand, information on “Turnover by residence of client” enable analysis of the type and location of clients and client specialisation.
Annual regional statistics: Three characteristics are published by NUTS-2 country regions and detailed on NACE Rev 2 division level (2-digits).
Starting from the reference year 2023, voluntary data in new size classes called Small-Mid Caps (i.e. 250-499 and 500 and more persons employed) of selected SBS variables are transmitted by Member States and published together with legal size classes in a new Eurostat table.
Several important derived indicators are generated in the form of ratios of certain monetary characteristics or per head values. A list with the available derived indicators is available in the Annexes.
8 September 2025
SBS describe the activity structure, conduct and performance of businesses in the Member States of the European Union (EU). Given their coverage, SBS represent the statistical source providing the most comprehensive picture of the European economy, both at national and aggregated EU level. Structural Business Statistics (SBS) describe the economy through the observation of units engaged in an economic activity. They answer such questions as: how much wealth is created in an economic activity? What workforce is needed to create this wealth? Is this activity contributing to the growth of the economy? How much investment is made in this activity?
Compared to the data requirements of the previous European Regulation on SBS of 2008, the new EBS Regulation has incorporated the following changes :
improved the coverage of the services sector;
extended the coverage of collected variables;
provision of preliminary data by size class for 3 variables;
restructured data requirements for the financial and insurance activities sector;
applied simplifying measures.
Due to the integrated approach of the EBS Regulation, the statistical domains as previously known are no longer explicitly found there but can be identified at the level of topics and detailed topics, the levels below the new statistical domains. The EBS Regulation distinguishes four statistical domains:
(a) Short-term statistics (b) Country-level business statistics (c) Regional business statistics (d) Statistics on international activities.
SBS is embedded in domain b) ‘Country-level business statistics’ and in domain c) ‘Regional business statistics’.
The 45 variables constituting the SBS part of the EBS Regulation can be allocated to 5 topics:
Business population;
Labour inputs;
Purchases;
Outputs and performance;
Investments.
These topics are further subdivided into 15 detailed topics. Ten tables define the structure of the actual data requirements of SBS, both at the country level (EBS GIA Tables 10, 11, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28) and at the regional level (EBS GIA table 29).
the product specialisation is defined as a share of the most important product in the total turnover of an enterprise in the following way:
a) the most important product is consistent with the main activity of the enterprise and
b) the most important product comprises at least 75% of its total net turnover.
the client specialisation is defined as a share of the three biggest clients in total turnover:
a) Non-specialised: [0% - 50%]
b) Medium specialised: [50% - 75%]
c) Highly specialised: [75% - 100%]
Only two statistical units apply in SBS: the enterprise for the country-level business statistics data and the local unit for the regional business data.
The definition of an enterprise is provided by the Statistical Unit Regulation (Council Regulation (EEC) No 696 / 93) as follows: "The enterprise is the smallest combination of legal units that is an organisational unit producing goods or services, which benefits from a certain degree of autonomy in decision-making, especially for the allocation of its current resources. An enterprise carries out one or more activities at one or more locations. An enterprise may be a sole legal unit."
In business statistics, the term enterprise should always be used in the sense of a ‘statistical enterprise’. This means, through definition, one aims to create a statistical unit that would allow one to compile harmonised data, irrespective of the actual organisational and legal structures of the economic agents. In the past, mainly until reference year 2018, many Member States used the ‘legal unit’ as a proxy for the ‘enterprise’. The transition from the ‘legal unit’ to the ‘enterprise’ may have caused breaks in the series of the SBS characteristics, for example an enterprise consisting of several legal units will only be counted once and intraflows between the legal units within the enterprise will be eliminated (consolidated) in SBS statistics.
The local unit is defined in the Statistical Unit Regulation as follows: "The local unit is an enterprises or part thereof (e.g., a workshop, factory, warehouse, office, mine or deport) situated in a geographical identified place. At or from this place economic activity is carried out for which – save for certain exceptions – one or more persons work (even if only part time) for one and the same enterprise."
Structural business statistics (SBS) cover the economic activities of market producers within the business economy NACE Rev. 2 Sections B to N, P to R and Divisions S95 and S96. This includes mining and quarrying, industry, supply and sewerage, construction, trade, and most of the service activities. SBS do not cover agriculture, forestry and fishing, nor public administration and largely non-market services such as education and health.
The data category covers EU Member States, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and some EU Candidate and potential candidate countries.
SBS data refer to the calendar year and in most cases corresponds to the fiscal year.
The SBS Regulation is an output-oriented regulation, leaving data providers the choice of data sources. In most countries a combination of survey and administrative data is used.
Monetary data are expressed in millions of €. For annual average exchange rates vis-à-vis the euro please refer to the following tables:
Per head values are expressed in thousands of € per head.
Per hours values are expressed in € per hour.
Ratios of monetary variables are expressed in percentages.
Employment variables are expressed in units.
The European aggregate EU27_2020 for European Union includes 27 countries and is available from reference year 2011 onwards.
European aggregates are calculated for most characteristics, typically broken down by economic activity, and for some characteristics also by size class. These aggregates are disseminated twice a year in Q4, coinciding with the release of final data and preliminary data.
When the aggregates are based on incomplete coverage, estimates may be published. In such cases, the data are flagged with the symbol"e" to indicate an estimated value. This estimation is applied when the difference — calculated as ABS (rounded_value – real_value) / real_value * 100 — is less than or equal to 5%.
In order to protect confidential data at the national level some of EU aggregates are rounded. This way the confidential data at national level can only be determined with a very high error margin, the EU aggregates are however still acceptably accurate. A consequence of this method to hide confidential national data is that the breakdown of the data for a certain activity level into more detailed activities does not correspond fully with the figure provided for this activity level.
The Structural Business Statistics (SBS) data is collected through statistical surveys, from the business register or from administrative sources. National Statistical Institutes (NSIs) can use one or several of these sources, according to the survey strategy they have adopted, taking into account the costs, the quality and the response burden on enterprises.
Statistical surveys: the NSI sends questionnaires to the enterprises, legal units or local units surveyed. They send these questionnaires either to all enterprises (exhaustive survey) or to a sample of enterprises. Very often, samples are used for smaller enterprises while large enterprises are all surveyed. This is called stratified sampling with an inclusion probability depending on size of the unit.
Administrative sources: they are typically maintained by the tax and social security authorities. They are used as a source by the NSI to comply with the SBS regulation requirements. Administrative sources have the advantage of reducing the response burden on enterprises; however, in most cases they don't contain all variables required. Moreover, the parameters sampled generally don't coincide exactly with the definition of the statistical characteristics they are used as a proxy of.
Business register: it provides the information that can be used for the SBS data collection (number of enterprises) and contains some basic characteristics (NACE activity code, employment, turnover) used for sample stratification, for inference or for calibration.
Annual, however, for some specific sectors the information is available only on a multi-yearly basis.
Preliminary and final data are disseminated respectively 2 and 4 months after legal deadline transmission from the countries.
Some methodological factors that limit the comparisons across countries can be found in the National metadata at the top right of the page.
To assess the inter-temporal comparability of SBS data, it should be investigated whether the same concepts and methods are applied. In case data is not comparable there might be a break in time series. Particular reasons for breaks in time series in SBS data are the implementation of EBS regulation (for reference year 2021), the implementation of statistical unit enterprise (for most of the countries for reference year 2018), changes in NACE classification (for reference year 2008).
