National Statistics Institute of Spain

Subdirección General de Estadísticas Coyunturales

Avenida de Manoteras, 52 - Módulo 374

28050 Madrid - España

The Quarterly Business Demography data collection covers the following two indicators:

• Business Registrations (BURE)
• Business Bankruptcies (BUBA)

The statistic offers quarterly information on the number of registrated companies, and the number of bankrupted companies in the reference period.

The classification system used is the NACE rev 2.0

The number of registrations and bankruptcies are classified by their main activity in the following NACE rev 2.0 breakdowns:

• BTE (sections B to E)
• F
• G
• H
• I
• J
• KTN (sections K to N)
• PTSXS94 (sections P to S except S94)

BURE

Registration
The act of registering a new company in the mercantile register.

Company
The company corresponds to an organisation unit that produces goods and services, and that enjoys a certain autonomy in decision-making, mainly at the time of using the available current resources. The company carries out one or more economic activities in one or more places.

BUBA 

Bankruptcy court order
Court order issued by the judge of a mercantile court notifying of bankruptcy proceedings. Persons affected by these are considered in "concurso de acreedores".

Bankrupt debtors
Natural or legal person legally declared in "concurso de acreedores" by a bankruptcy court order

BURE

The statistical units are the created companies, recorded in the mercantile registers during the reference period.

BUBA

The statistical units are the bankrupt debtors declared during the reference period.

BURE

The statistical population is made up of all the companies registered in the Registro Mercantil Central.

BUBA

The statistical population is made up of all the bankrupt debtors.

The entire Spanish territory

The statistics are carried out on a quarterly basis. There is available data from 2021Q1

Not applicable because data is sent in absolute figures

BURE

Pure number of created companies

BUBA

Pure number of bankrupt debtors

The reference period is the natural quarter

This statistics is made according to:

• REGULATION (EU) 2019/2152 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 27 November 2019 on European business statistics, repealing 10 legal acts in the field of business statistics
• COMMISSION IMPLEMENTING REGULATION (EU) 2020/1197 of 30 July 2020 laying down technical specifications and arrangements pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics repealing 10 legal acts in the field of business statistics

The BUBA indicator is made by the CORPME (Colegio de Registradores de la Propiedad y Mercantiles de España) and is first sent to the INE. Then the INE sends it to Eurostat along with the BURE indicator. 

The exchange of information between the CORPME and the INE is regulated by the FFEP (Law of the Public Statistic Function)

In order to produce the aggregates for the European Union, QBD data are transmitted to Eurostat every quarter using the EDAMIS platform. Eurostat is the only international organisation receiving this data.

Data may be public

Both Registrations and Bankruptcies data are public data. Registrations must be made public in the BORME and  bankruptcies must be be made public in the BOE. For this, there is no need to apply extra measures to ensure confidentiality.

No national dissemination.

Not applicable.

Not applicable or Transmitted to Eurostat.

The statistics are disseminated by Eurostat on a quarterly basis. The statistics is not disseminated by the INE.

News Release is not published.

There is no specific paper publication for QBD data.

QBD data are not published in online database.

Microdata are/are not available in online database.

QBD data have been disseminated to Eurostat through eDamis.

BURE

BURE indicator is made based on the data of Mercantile Companies Statistics. Its methodology can be consulted in 

https://www.ine.es/dynt3/metadatos/en/RespuestaDatos.html?oe=30151

BUBA

BURE indicator is made based on the data of Bankruptcy Proceedings Statistics. Its methodology can be consulted in 

https://www.registradores.org/actualidad/portal-estadistico-registral/estadisticas-concursales#portlet_com_liferay_journal_content_web_portlet_JournalContentPortlet_INSTANCE_92PKQIzgTNBS

Quality controls are made for the national statistics the QBD indicators are based on.

See details for BURE indicator in section 11.1 in this link

See details for BUBA indicator in section 11.1 in this link

The national statistics the QBD indicators are based on are high-quality statistical operations that meet all criteria of coherence, comparability, precision and timeliness.

Statistics users include:

• Ministries and other public bodies, answers to parliamentary requests.
• Territorial administrations (Autonomous Communities, municipal councils, etc.), for dissemination of their territorial data.
• Companies and non-profit institutions.

Each one of these users have different needs according to the purpose and use they will make of the information they require.

BURE

The INE has carried out general user satisfaction surveys in 2007, 2010, 2013,  2016 and 2019 and it plans to continue doing so every three years. These surveys cover the national statistics the BURE indicator is based on (Mercantile Companies Statistics). The purpose of these surveys is to find out what users think about the quality of the information of the INE statistics and the extent to which their needs of information are covered. In addition, additional surveys are carried out in order to acknowledge better other fields such as dissemination of the information, quality of some publications...

On the INE website, in its section Methods and Projects / Quality and Code of Practice / INE quality management / User surveys are available surveys conducted to date.(Click  next link).

The specific needs of users, which are not covered with the information provided by these statistics, are taken into account whenever customised requests are carried out, and to the extent possible, are incorporated in the statistics when the methodology is updated.

BUBA

The BUBA indicator is calculated based on the national Bankruptcy Proceedings Statistics, whic is made by the Colegio de Registradores de la Propiedad, Mercantiles y Bienes Muebles de España (CORPME).

COPME has not yet done any user satisfaction surveys but plans to do one every three years. The purpose of these surveys will be to find out what users think about the quality of the information of the CORPME statistics and the extent to which their needs of information are covered. In addition, additional surveys are carried out in order to acknowledge better other fields such as dissemination of the information, quality of some publications...

The indicators provide all the information required by the regulation mentioned in section 6 of this metadata file.

The procedure for collection, coverage control, error filtering and validation of the information allow obtaining a high degree of reliability in the statistics.

As quarterly business demography indicators are "event based" statistics based on complete enumeration, sampling error is not applicable.

As for other administrative event based data, the registration delays might be a source of errors, in particular for declarations of bankruptcies. For example, there might be a delay longer than 40 days for registering a declaration of bankruptcy for the reference quarter ("data collection and access error"). This issue is adressed via data revisions.

INE reports the data to Eurostat within 40 days after the end of the reference quarter (Q+40). Dissemination is done by Eurostat afterwards. 

All the QBD reports are made within the stablished Q+40 days limit

Data are comparable between countries. Results are based on the requirements of the EU Regulation, which is in use in all EU Member States. This ensures a good comparability between national data and high-quality European aggregates.

The same statistical concepts are applied in all the regions within Spain. Therefore there is a good comparability within Spanish regions.

Data on QBD indicators is available from 1st quarter of 2021. Including the last quarter of 2023 ,the length of the comparable time series data is CC2=12.

The BURE indicator is made from the data of the national Mercantile Company Statistics, which follows the same trend as the Company Statistics compiled by the Central Mercantile Register.

The BUBA indicator is made from the data of the national Bankruptcy Proceedings Statistics, which follows the same trend as the data disseminated by Consejo General del Poder Judicial (CGPJ).

NACE breakdowns are consistent within the publication. There are controls to ensure that NACE section PTSXS94 figures are compatible with the other sections. 

COST

The BURE indicator is made based on the data of Mercantile Companies Statistics. The budgetary credit necessary to finance this statistics in the Annual Program 2023 comes to a total of 31.75 thousand euros.

The BUBA indicator is made based on the data of Bankruptcy Proceedings Statistics. The budgetary credit necessary to finance this statistics in the Annual Program 2023 comes to a total of 39.42 thousand euros.

BURDEN

The national statistics which are used to make the QBD indicators use administrative sources so the information is already held by the administration. Therefore, making these QBD indicators does not involve any cost for the users, as it doesn't need their participation to obtain the data.

BURE

The INE of Spain has a policy which regulates the basic aspects of statistical data revision, seeking to ensure process transparency and product quality. This policy is laid out in the document approved by the INE board of directors on 13 March of 2015, which is available on the INE website, in the section "Methods and projects/Quality and Code of Practice/INE’s Quality management/INE’s Revision policy" (link).

This general policy sets the criteria that the different type of revisions should follow:  routine revision- it is the case of statistics whose production process includes regular revisions-; more extensive revision- when methodological or basic reference source changes take place-; and exceptional revision- for instance, when an error appears in a published statistic-.

For some statistics, in which users particularly value having data as soon as possible, the initial estimates are published with the expectation that they might be revised and updated when new data is available. This is characteristic of short-term statistics, such as the monthly or quarterly statistics.

The same revision policy is applied both nationally and in transmission to Eurostat.

BUBA

The BUBA indicators are based on the data of the Estadística del Procedimiento Concursal, publiched by the CORPME (Colegio Oficial de Registradores de la Propiedad y Mercantiles de España). Its revision policy can be seen here: (link)

BURE indicator figures are not revised, as Mercantile Companies Statistics national data revisions show minimal changes from initial to final data.

BUBA indicator figures are revised once. When the initial data of a given year is disseminated, the final data of the previous year is disseminated too. 

   As of 2024-05-07, final BUBA data has been published for the quarters 2021Q1 - 2023Q1 (9 periods). The MAR and RMAR indicators for these periods are:

   MAR = 435,89
   RMAR = 21,53%

   These indicators have been calculated using the number of bankruptcies for the biggest breakdown BTSXO_S94.

The BURE indicator is made based on the data of Mercantile Companies Statistics. Its source data is the information regarding the registerable acts of the companies is obtained from the territorial mercantile registers, which each month send the Central Mercantile Register all the company movements. The Central Mercantile Register is the body that sends the INE the information necessary for compiling the statistics, and it does so via computer media.

The BUBA indicator is made based on the data of Bankruptcy Proceedings Statistics. Its source data is Registro Público Concursal, a database held by the CORPME that is fed by the commercial courts of Spain.

The data used to make the BURE indicator is received by the INE on a monthly basis.

The data used to make the BUBA indicator is continuosly (daily) being incorporated in the Registro Público Concursal. 

Administrative sources are used to make the QBD indicators.

For the BURE indicator, The Central Mercantile Register sends the data in an encrypted file via e-mail, to the INE.

For the BUBA indicator, the CORPME has direct access to the administrative database Registro Público Concursal.

Data is sent to Eurostat using the Edamis platform. Data must pass the structural and content validations (STRUVAL and CONVAL) in Edamis to be accepted.

There is no treatment for non-response.

No adjustment is made at national level.

Seasonal adjustment is done by Eurostat using the non-adjusted national data.

Not applicable