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 C2 - National Accounts - production
1.3. Contact name
Confidential because of GDPR
1.4. Contact person function
Confidential because of GDPR
1.5. Contact mail address
2920 Luxembourg 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
28 January 2025
2.2. Metadata last posted
28 January 2025
2.3. Metadata last update
28 January 2025
3.1. Data description
National accounts are a coherent and consistent set of macroeconomic indicators, which provide an overall picture of the economic situation and are widely used for economic analysis and forecasting, policy design and policy making.
Gross domestic product (GDP) is one of the key aggregates in the European system of accounts (ESA). GDP is a measure of the total economic activity taking place on an economic territory which leads to output meeting the final demands of the economy.
There are three ways of measuring GDP at market prices:
the production approach, as the sum of the values added by all activities which produce goods and services, plus taxes less subsidies on products;
the expenditure approach, as the total of all final expenditures made in either consuming the final output of the economy, or in adding to wealth, plus exports less imports of goods and services;
the income approach, as the total of all incomes earned in the process of producing goods and services plus taxes on production and imports less subsidies.
Data published in the following tables reflect these 3 approaches.
Breakdowns provided are based on the ESA Transmission Programme, which list all tables requested from the countries.
The annual tables under this collection are the following:
nama_10_gdp GDP and main components (output, expenditure and income)
nama_10_pc Main GDP aggregates per capita
nama_10_a10 Gross value added and income components by A*10 industry
nama_10_a64 Gross value added and income components by A*64 industry
Geographical entities covered are the European Union, the euro area, EU Member States, EFTA countries and Candidate Countries. Data from other countries (e.g. US, Japan and other countries) are received via the OECD and IMF and published in Eurobase in the naid_10 collection.
Data sources: National Statistical Institutes, Eurostat (for European aggregates)
3.2. Classification system
The standard followed is the European System of National and Regional Accounts (ESA 2010). This is the newest internationally compatible EU accounting framework for a systematic and detailed description of an economy. From September 2014 the data transmission from Member States to Eurostat follows ESA 2010 rules.
Breakdowns exist for variables by economic activity and final consumption by purpose.
Economic activity
ESA2010 uses aggregation levels of the NACE Rev.2 classification to define industry breakdowns (NACE stands for Nomenclature générale des Activités économiques dans les Communautés Européennes). NACE Rev.2 is a classification of economic activities widely used in statistics and in other domains. Requirements for the transmission of NACE Rev.2 series have been specified in the Commission Regulation (EC) No 715/2010 of 10 August 2010.
Annual national accounts refer to the whole economy, but breakdowns by sectors are provided by the annual sector accounts.
3.4. Statistical concepts and definitions
The following are brief definitions of concepts and variables from the European System of Accounts 2010 (ESA 2010). In general, the ESA 2010 which was published in the Official Journal as Annex A of Regulation (EU) No 549/2013 and amended by EU regulation 2023/734, may be referred to for more detailed explanations on methodology.
GDP - Gross domestic product
GDP at market prices is the final result of the production activity of resident producer units. It is defined in three ways:
a. GDP Output approach
From the production point of view GDP can be measured as the sum of the following components:
GDP = Total gross value added (B.1G) + Taxes less subsidies on products (D.21 less D.31)
where:
Gross Value Added (GVA)= Output (P.1) - Intermediate consumption (P.2)
b. GDP Expenditure approach
From the expenditure side, GDP can be measured as follows:
GDP =
Household and non-profit institutions serving households final expenditure (P.3 in S.14+S.15)
+ government final consumption expenditure (P.3 in S.13)
+ gross fixed capital formation (P.51)
+ changes in inventories (P.52)
+ acquisition less disposal of valuables (P.53)
+ exports (P.6)
- imports (P.7)
c. GDP Income approach
GDP =
Compensation of employees (D.1)
+ gross operating surplus and mixed income (B.2g and B.3g)
+ taxes less subsidies on production and imports (D.2 and D.3)
Note: GDP income components and other income measures are only available at current prices, because purely monetary flows cannot be decomposed into a price and a volume component. They may, however, be converted to "real terms" by applying an appropriate deflator.
3.5. Statistical unit
National accounts aim to capture economic activity within the domestic territory. They combine data from a host of base statistics, and thus they have no common sampling reference frame. The elementary building blocks of ESA 2010 statistics are statistical units and their groupings. ESA 2010 defines two types of units, institutional units and local kind-of-activity units (ESA 2010, 1.54).
3.6. Statistical population
National accounts combine data from many source statistics. The concept of statistical population is not applicable in a national accounts’ context.
3.7. Reference area
Eurostat publishes national accounts data for European Union, euro area, EU Member States, EFTA countries, candidate countries, the United States, Japan and other countries on an ad-hoc basis. Specific tables are dedicated to international data under the domain ‘National accounts – international data cooperation (naid_10)'.
Eurostat estimates the aggregates for the EU and the euro area. All other data are produced by the statistical offices of the respective countries. For further information on country data, you may also refer to National Statistical Institutes and National Central Banks (links given on the Eurostat website).
EU Member States and EFTA countries have legal obligations to submit their data to Eurostat as defined in the European System of Accounts ESA 2010 transmission programme of data. These data are the inputs for Eurostat's estimates of EU and the euro area. Since the United States, Japan and other third countries have no such obligation to transmit data to Eurostat, coverage is usually limited to key aggregates, and delays between national publication and availability on Eurostat's website may be longer. Note that for some countries not covered in the national accounts domain, some central aggregates such as GDP may be available from the general statistics domain of Eurostat's online database.
3.8. Coverage - Time
The ESA 2010 Transmission Programme requests a time coverage from 1995. Nevertheless, the coverage for national series can be substantially longer (up to 1975). European aggregates are calculated from 1995.
Forecasts (usually two years ahead) for national and European series based on forecasted growth produced by the Commission's General Directorate Economy and Finance (DG ECFIN) may be retrieved from DG ECFIN's website.
3.9. Base period
Not applicable. The Commission Decision 98/715/EC requires previous year prices and volume estimates to be presented in chain-linked series.
The GDP main aggregates data are presented using a range of unit measures including current price, volume and implicit deflator series. Please note that series are not available for all tables: For instance, figures related to EU average can only be derived after the estimation of the respective aggregate and the presentation focuses on the most relevant units for typical users.
Current price figures are typically expressed in (millions of) national currency and euro. They can be directly observed but include inflation effects. Additional units and ratios for current prices are derived and presented to facilitate comparisons of economic structures across time or countries.
National currency series in current prices (CP_MNAC) (including fixed euro series for euro area Member States) are transmitted by Member states and correspond to nationally published figures. They embed a volume and a price (inflation) component as well as an exchange rate when the national currency is not the Euro.
Euro series (CP MEUR) are derived from transmitted national currency series using historic exchange rates. They are suitable for internal comparison and aggregation. When comparing them over time, account must be taken of exchange rate effects.
For euro area Member States, the national currency series are converted into euros using the irrevocably fixed exchange rate. This preserves the same growth rates than for the previous national currency series. Both series coincide for years after accession to the euro area but differ for earlier years due to market exchange rate movements.
Purchasing Power Standards (PPS) (CP_MPPS) are fictive 'currency' units that remove differences in purchasing power, i.e. different price levels between countries. These parities are obtained as a weighted average of relative price ratios in respect to a homogeneous basket of goods and services, both comparable and representative for each country. They are fixed in a way that makes the average purchasing power of one euro in the European Union equal to one PPS. PPS series should be used for cross-country comparisons in a specific year but do not for comparisons over time since they do not constitute time series.
To facilitate the comparisons between countries, data are expressed in percent of the EU27 aggregate, e.g. using euro (PC_EU27_2020_MEUR_CP) or purchasing power standards (PC_EU_MPPS_CP).
Figures are also expressed in relation to total GDP (PC_GDP) or thetotal aggregate (PC_TOTAL) in case of breakdowns by industry to facilitate comparisons of the relative importance of the aggregates over time or across countries.
Volume figures show the development of aggregates excluding inflation. They are typically derived as previous year prices but presented as chain linked volumes, indices or various growth rates.
National accounts volumes for transactions concerning goods and services are estimated in previous year prices (PYP_MNAC or PYP_MEUR) to eliminate the influence of inflation. They are used to derive chain-linked volumes and included in the dissemination for advanced users to allow construction of custom aggregations and derived measures. Since the price base changes every year, the figures do not constitute a homogeneous time series.
Chain-linked level series obtained by successively applying previous year's price's growth rates to the current price figure of a specific reference year e.g. 2020 (CLV20_MNAC, CLV20_MEUR). Chain-linked volumes with 2005, 2010 and 2015 as reference year are still presented.
Chain-linking involves the loss of additivity for all years except the reference year and the directly following year, because these are the only periods expressed in prices of the reference year. For other years, chain-linked components of GDP will not sum to chain-linked GDP, and chain-linked Member States' GDP will not sum to chain-linked EU27 GDP.
In addition, chain-linking cannot be performed directly on variables that can take both negative and positive values. Therefore, no chain-linked series are provided for changes in inventories (P.52), acquisition less disposal of valuables (P.53) and the external balance (B.11, B.111 for goods only, B.112 for services only). These components are available only at current prices and at previous year's prices.
Index series (CLV_I20, CLV_I15, CLV_I10, CLV_I05) are derived by successively applying previous year's price's growth rates to an index value 100 in the reference year. The volume growth rates are equal with the growth rates in the level series mentioned above.
Growth rates represent the percentage change over previous period. In the case of annual data, this is the previous year. They are calculated for chain-linked series.t
Contributions to growth
reflect the fact that a change in GDP can be attributed to changes in its components, hence showing which component contributed strongly to economic growth and which did not. A component's contribution depends on both its size and its growth. They are calculated as percentage point change over previous period i.e previous year (CON_PPCH_PRE). Except for rounding effects, all contributions should sum up to the GDP growth rate. The method applied by Eurostat corresponds to the one described by INSEE. While most countries agreed that this method could be applied to derive contributions to growth for their countries also, some countries preferred to transmit data based on a slightly different method to be fully consistent with national dissemination. For these countries: Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Portugal data dissemination may therefore not be fully complete. For these countries, the data are marked with a (d) flag (definition differs). The information for these countries is the same as published nationally. You could find below reference to national methodology. The component and adjustment for which calculation are made in those countries may differ from other (full coverage otherwise).
NL: NL method for year on year series uses additive time series (constant prices, in average prices of the previous year) instead of the chain-linked series.
DK:DST website (In Danish) Please note that sign is inverted for “Final consumption expenditure of non-resident households on the economic territory”.
PT: The contribution of a component to GDP year-on-year rate of change is equal to the rate of change of the component weighted by its weight in GDP at the same quarter of the previous year. The contribution of a component to GDP quarter-on-quarter rate of change is equal to the rate of change of the component weighted by its weight in GDP at the previous quarter. The volume contributions are based on chain-linked volume series.
Implicit deflator series are derived as a ratio of current price to chain-linked volumes series and give indication of underlying price changes.
The series differ for national currency or euro series and can be expressed as an index (PD20_NAC, PD15_NAC, PD10_NAC, PD05_NAC or PD20_EUR, PD15_EUR, PD10_EUR, PD05_EUR) or growth rates (PD_PCH_PRE_NAC, PD_EUR, PD_PCH_PRE_EUR).
The accounting period is the calendar year, with temporal coverage varying across geographical units.
6.1. Institutional Mandate - legal acts and other agreements
National accounts are compiled in accordance with the European System of Accounts (ESA 2010) which was published in the Official Journal as Annex A of Regulation (EU) No 549/2013, amended by Council Regulation (EU) 2023/734 of 15 March 2023.
Data received via the transmission programme are shared with other institutions in accordance with specific agreements, notably with the ECB and the OECD. A protocol for co-operation between Eurostat and the OECD in the area of National Accounts signed in June 2024 specifies agreed data exchange and data validation arrangements. These data are published in Eurobase in the naid_10 collection.
7.1. Confidentiality - policy
Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics (recital 24 and Article 20(4)) of 11 March 2009 (OJ L 87, p. 164), 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 Member States transmit data with a confidentiality flag or an embargo date, these data are not disseminated until the confidentiality flag is removed in a subsequent data transmission or the embargo expires.
8.1. Release calendar
Eurostat releases of European annual accounts aggregates are not covered by a pre-announced release calendar, but annual accounts are usually updated on the occasion of new quarterly releases (which are released according to a pre-announced calendar that is published on Eurostat's website) and figures for a new year usually become available with the first release of quarterly accounts for the fourth quarter of the reference year around 8 March.
National data are published by the National Statistical Institutes (NSI) following national dissemination calendars. Please consult NSI's websites to obtain national dissemination calendars (links are given on Eurostat website). National data become visible on Eurostat's online database usually one to two days after their reception (processing including quality monitoring).
8.2. Release calendar access
The release calendar for European quarterly national accounts is published on the website: (Overview); see “QNA release calendar” and is also presented in Eurostat’s release calendar.
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.
In line with this protocol and on a strictly regulated basis, European estimates of main GDP aggregates are sent for information to the European Central Bank (ECB), to the European Commission Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN) under embargo the evening before official release of data.
The transmission requirements for each dataset are defined in the European System of Accounts (ESA 2010) transmission programme.
For annual data these are, in principle:
Main GDP aggregates (nama_10_ma): t+2 months and t+9 months.
Basic breakdowns of main GDP aggregates (by industry) (nama_10_bbr): t+2 months and t+9 months.
Detailed breakdowns of main GDP aggregates (by industry and consumption purpose) (nama_10_dbr): t+9 months and t+21 months.
10.1. Dissemination format - News release
There is no specific news release for annual main national accounts aggregates, but the first estimates of EU/EA annual growth are published with the quarterly national accounts flash release and subsequent news releases for the fourth quarter, and annual data are estimated and updated with the subsequent quarterly releases.
Please consult the respective section of Eurostat’s public database. Estimations of annual main European national accounts aggregates are updated in line with the regular quarterly estimates (see 10.1). Member States’ annual data are published shortly after their transmission, with first estimates generally due at t+2 months and t+9 months.
Please consult NSI's websites to obtain national dissemination calendars.
10.4. Dissemination format - microdata access
Not applicable.
10.5. Dissemination format - other
Apart from the accompanying press release, there are no official comments from Eurostat at the time of the release of the European aggregates. Comments may or may not be made by the European Commission or European Union Member States.
For information on any comment possibly made by the Commission, please refer to Latest press releases. For further information on any comments possibly provided by National Statistical Institutes, National Central Banks or National Governments on their own data, please refer to their websites (links are given on Eurostat website (Eurostat).
10.6. Documentation on methodology
European legislation and guidelines are explained in ESA 2010 (see links above under "6.1. Institutional Mandate - legal acts and other agreements").
10.7. Quality management - documentation
Not available.
11.1. Quality assurance
Quality is assured by strict application of ESA 2010 concepts and by thorough validation of the data delivered by countries.
ESA 2010 data transmissions are subject to regular quality assessment reviews. Article 4 of Regulation (EU) No 549/2013 (ESA 2010 Regulation) specifies that the data covered by that Regulation is subject to the quality criteria, namely relevance, accuracy, timeliness and punctuality, accessibility and clarity, comparability and coherence, as set out in Article 12(1) of Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council.
Member States are to provide the Commission with a report on the quality of the transmitted data on national and regional accounts. The modalities, structure, periodicity and assessment indicators of the quality reports on data transmitted have been specified in a Commission Implementing Regulation 2016/2304 of 19 December 2016. The implementation of the quality reporting and assessment exercise started in 2017 and is carried out annually. As part of the annual exercise, Eurostat assesses the results, prepares and publishes an overall assessment based on the national quality reports and other available information.
The Commission also, on a 5-year basis, reports to the European Parliament and the Council on the application of the ESA 2010 Regulation, including the quality of data on national and regional accounts. The first of such reports was published in 2018. The latest report was published in 2023.
12.1. Relevance - User Needs
Users of annual national accounts data are typically interested in analysing structural changes in the economy from a medium-term perspective.
12.2. Relevance - User Satisfaction
Annual national accounts data are a key instrument for economic analysis.
12.3. Completeness
Annual national accounts data provide detailed breakdowns on production, consumption, and income.
13.1. Accuracy - overall
Eurostat publishes information on revisions on quarterly data of seasonally and working day adjusted volume GDP series – vintages of quarter-on-quarter growth rates and year-on-year growth rates – demonstrating the reliability of European GDP estimates. The revision triangles are available starting with Q1 2017 for the EU and Q1 2012 for the euro area. The files are regularly updated when newer reference periods become available.
Quality reports on national accounts, including revision analysis are also published by some Member States. Eurostat publishes a revision analysis of selected macro-economic indicators in the annual quality reports.
13.2. Sampling error
Not applicable.
13.3. Non-sampling error
Not applicable.
14.1. Timeliness
Member States are required to transmit their data to Eurostat in compliance with the European System of Accounts ESA 2010 transmission programme, subject to derogations.
14.2. Punctuality
Eurostat releases its estimates of European aggregates in line with the pre-announced release schedule (see release calendar in dedicated section). Member states' data are revised according to national schedules, and revisions are applied to Eurostat’s online database as soon as they are processed by Eurostat.
15.1. Comparability - geographical
The comparability is insured by the application of common definitions (European System of Accounts ESA 2010).
15.2. Comparability - over time
By using a common framework, the European System of Accounts (ESA 2010), data can be comparable over time. Where series cannot be comparable over time, for example those expressed as a percentage of the total EU, then an explanatory note is presented with the series.
15.3. Coherence - cross domain
Additional time series are available from the other domains on National Accounts, in particular the domain on quarterly national accounts, and from Eurostat publications.
Most of the national data used in the calculation of the euro area and European Union aggregates have originally been published by the National Statistical Institutes (NSI). These data may also be used for cross-checking.
In certain cases, data from other domains of economic statistics, i.e. balance of payments statistics, business statistics, household budget statistics or external trade statistics can be used for cross-checking purposes. These economic statistics are also available from the appropriate domains on Eurostat's website.
15.4. Coherence - internal
In between Eurostat releases, Member States may revise their figures; Eurostat publishes the new Member States' accounts shortly after reception but does not recalculate the EU accounts 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, and annual and quarterly EU aggregates will by default be coherent.
Annual national accounts are produced from a large variety of data sources with varying degrees of timeliness, taking up to three years or more in the case of structural sources. As users need national and international data as fast as possible, particularly on certain key aggregates, data are produced using data sources that are more readily available. When more complete source data are obtained, the statistics are updated to incorporate the new information.
Revisions of macroeconomic statistics are necessary to improve data quality. To minimise the inconvenience for data users, the European Statistical System (ESS) and the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) try to strike the right balance between incorporating the necessary statistical revisions and maintaining an acceptable degree of consistency across domains and countries. To this end, the two systems have worked together to draw up the HERP.
According to HERP, a distinction should be made between 'routine' revisions and 'major' or 'benchmark' revisions.
Routine revisions
Routine revisions refer to the changes made to the economic data published initially and to its subsequent releases for a particular reference year.
According to the guidelines laid down in HERP, annual estimates are usually revised retrospectively for up to four years to incorporate annual data sources as well as changes following Excessive Deficit Procedure and Own Resources notifications, although the policy allows unlimited revisions for transmissions at t+9 months. Some countries are obliged to publish the initial annual data for reference year t-1 in the second calendar quarter of the year instead of the third quarter.
The sequence of publications/revisions regarding annual data, in calendar year t, is as follows:
Quarter 1: First estimate of annual data for year t-1, usually corresponding to the sum of the quarterly figures released;
Quarter 2: First possible revision of annual data for year t-1 to include revisions of quarters of t-1;
Quarter 3: First estimate of annual data for year t-1 based on both annual and first available sources;
Quarter 4: Exceptional revisions of annual data for year t-1 may be carried out to take into account changes following Excessive Deficit Procedure and Own Resources notifications (GNI Committee).
According to the principles of HERP, the maximum depth of revisions in each quarter is 4 years, as the majority of NSIs work on a cycle of 3-4 years after which the data can be considered final. However, all years may be open to revisions during the third quarter of the year and during benchmark revisions.
HERP requires that national revision practices are aligned across statistical domains. This implies that annual routine revisions are carried out with identical timing and depth of revision across all statistical domains, to eliminate vintage differences as a source of inconsistencies. This part of the policy is also important in the context of ensuring consistency between national accounts and BOP/IIP. HERP requires at least one point in time where cross-domain consistency must be achieved; namely, in the 3rd quarter when annual revisions are also carried out.
In addition, HERP covers domains with annual and quarterly data reporting frequencies and requires alignment between quarterly and annual tables. HERP requires that all countries align their quarterly and annual frequencies across all domains, at least, in the third quarter.
Benchmark revisions
Benchmark revision is carried out at much longer time intervals. Its purpose is to incorporate the main new data sources and major changes in international statistical methodology (such as ESA 2010 or BPM6). In benchmark revision, many years are open for revision in order to create the longest possible consistent time series.
Disseminating the results of a benchmark revision always involves revising all, or at least a large part of the time series. HERP requires that benchmark revisions result in break-free series at least for the timespan required on a mandatory basis by the ESA 2010 Transmission Programme. Breaks in the series should be temporary and appropriately flagged with the ‘B’ flag.
The coordination and communication of benchmark revisions are prepared well in advance. Benchmark revisions are publicly announced in advance of the release date, at least a quarter in advance for annual and quarterly statistics. The actual release of the results of a benchmark revision are accompanied by sufficient documentation that allows users to appropriately assess the new presentation of the macroeconomic and/or social situation.
Eurostat plays a central role in the communication of European harmonised benchmark revisions. Information is published on the Eurostat website. The impact of benchmark revisions is analysed in statistical publications and presented to various technical fora, including key users and policy makers.
Non-scheduled revisions take place on an ad-hoc basis, outside the European harmonised approach. While there is no comprehensive set of recommendations agreed at EU level for when non-scheduled revisions, good practices regarding metadata and communication on non-scheduled revisions are discussed in the "Practical guidelines for revising ESA 2010 data".
Since they could confuse users and thus damage user confidence in official statistics, non-scheduled revisions should always be an exception and should be avoided where possible. If the benefits of carrying out a non-scheduled revision are assessed as clearly outweighing the disadvantages of waiting to integrate the results into a forthcoming benchmark revision, there should be a clear communication strategy.
Non-scheduled revisions may be often related to errors. Reported errors are assessed for seriousness to determine whether they should trigger a correction of already disseminated data.
Reported errors in national data that are deemed to be significant are corrected in the disseminated data as soon as the correct data have been validated. Corrections for other errors in national data are most often carried out in connection with the regular scheduled data dissemination/ regular revision. The EU aggregates are revised according to the pre-announced release calendar. Errors in national data have rarely a substantial impact on aggregates.
National Statistical Offices and National Central Banks agreed to gradually implement the HERP. The level of adherence to the guidelines of Member States' revision policies is regularly monitored through the ESA 2010 quality reporting.
Information on adherence to HERP and the national revision policies is available at Data revision.
17.2. Data revision - practice
By using a common framework, the European System of Accounts (ESA 2010), data can be comparable over time. Where series cannot be comparable over time, for example those expressed as a percentage of the total EU, then an explanatory note is presented with the series.
17.2. Data revision - practice
The revision practice effectively corresponds to the revision practice of the domain listed under sub‑concept 17.1 (data revision – policy).
Routine revisions for annual data
National accounts data at country level are subject to continuous routine revisions as new input data becomes available. Countries’ data are revised according to country schedules, and revisions become visible in Eurostat's online database as soon as new data is transmitted to and validated by Eurostat.
Countries’ revisions will typically result in revisions of the European aggregates, which are derived from these data, but updated estimations of the European aggregates are only released on specific dates. Annual data may be revised twice every quarter with the release of quarterly figures (65 days and approximately 110 days after the end of the reference quarter). The dates are pre-announced in the release calendar on Eurostat's website (see 8.2). On these occasions, previously published figures are subject to revision for all variables and all years. The depth of revisions observed for the aggregates depend on the depth of revisions of national data.
Data may be published even if they are missing for certain variables and/or countries or flagged as provisional or of low reliability. They are replaced with final data once transmitted and validated. European aggregates are updated according to the pre-announced release calendar. The vast majority of NSIs have aligned their national release dates with the calendar of Eurostat so that European aggregates are consistent with revised country data on the release day.
Routine revisions are documented and communicated through press releases and dedicated statistical analyses. A thorough analysis based on pre-selected revision indicators is also included in the annual national quality report.
Major or benchmark revisions
In 2014, all Member States disseminated revised data according to ESA 2010. The agreed guidelines specify that Member States should disseminate the results of the next benchmark revisions in 2019 and 2024 respectively. The majority of EU countries were able to meet the 2019 target. Almost all EU countries carried out the subsequent benchmark revision in 2024.
More information on benchmark revisions carried out in 2024 is available on these pages:
Information on benchmark revisions carried out in 2019 is available in this document: Benchmark revisions 2019.
18.1. Source data
Eurostat publishes national accounts data for the European Union, euro area and country data (for EU Member States, EFTA countries, candidate countries, the United States, Japan and some other countries on an ad-hoc basis). Eurostat estimates the figures for EU and euro area (see section below '18.5. Data Compilation' for details); all the other data are produced by the statistical offices of the respective countries.
Countries use many sources to compile their national accounts, among them administrative data from government, population censuses, business surveys and household surveys. No single survey can hence be referred to. Sources vary from country to country and may cover a large set of economic, social, financial and environmental items, which need not always be strictly related to national accounts. In any case, there is no single survey source for national accounts.
In particular, different sources are used for calculating the different approaches of GDP mentioned above under '3.4 Concepts and definitions'. If more than one of these approaches is used, their results are usually balanced, i.e. forced to be coherent, so that a single value for GDP is obtained.
For further information about sources and collection methods in National Statistical Institutes (NSIs), please refer to National Statistical Institutes and National Central Banks (see Eurostat's web site, and after having chosen the language to be used, select menu: About us - European Statistical System - ESS Partners. You can find a list of National statistical institutes (NSI) and other national authorities in this PDF file).
18.2. Frequency of data collection
Member States should transmit national accounts data to Eurostat upon national publication and/or in line with the deadlines specified in the European System of Accounts (ESA 2010) transmission programme. Member State's annual main aggregates are generally transmitted at t+2 and t+9 months. For further details see section 10.3 Dissemination format.
Data are collected from national sources. As the breadth of the sources varies, so does the frequency of collection, from monthly to annually, and in the case of population censuses they are mostly collected every decade.
18.3. Data collection
Data in ESA 2010 are transmitted via SDMX which introduced standardised codes.
National Accounts combine data from many source statistics. Techniques of data collection vary widely, depending on the compilation approach, the source statistics available, the particular account in the system of accounts, the timeliness of data release and other factors.
18.4. Data validation
Source data undergo a sequence of checks within NSIs. Eurostat checks national data for completeness (coverage of reference periods and variables), consistency (accounting consistency, frequency consistency between quarterly and annual accounts, consistency over time and consistency of prices), revisions, outliers and flagging practices and follows up with NSIs on any lack of quality in this respect.
The same checks are applied to data for the European aggregates. Validation against data from other domains and validation of the statistical tools used are done on an ad-hoc basis.
18.5. Data compilation
Eurostat compiles aggregate estimates for the euro area and the EU. The annual current price data for the euro area and the EU are derived using Member States' data as input, usually by adding up the aggregates for all Member States after expressing them in a common currency (euros).
EU chain-linked volumes are compiled from chain-linking EU data at previous year's prices, and not from summing Member States' chained series.
Figures expressed in Purchasing Power Standards are derived from figures expressed in national currency by using Purchasing Power Parities (PPP) as conversion factors.
Where single Member States' figures are not available, Eurostat may use unpublished estimates to impute country data and hence calculate the European aggregates.
More information can be found in the dedicated section of Eurostat’s website.
18.6. Adjustment
If Member States' accounts show discrepancies (explicit or implicit) between GDP and the sum of components, European annual accounts derived from summing these up would show a discrepancy equal to the sum of Member States' discrepancies. To avoid this, European annual accounts use some variables to adjust for any possible lack of additivity between the total and the sum of its components, i.e. these variables are effectively used as balancing items. This is only possible at current and at previous year's prices, because of the lack of additivity induced by the chain-linking technique.
For the expenditure approach of GDP, the balancing variables are changes in inventories plus net acquisition of valuables (P.52+P.53).
For the income approach of GDP the balancing variables are gross operating surplus and mixed income (B.2g + B.3g).
For the output approach of GDP, all elements are subject to a proportional adjustment.
Similarly, when calculating European aggregates, Eurostat corrects country data for lack of additivity if a variable does not equal the sum of its (industry, product or COICOP) breakdowns.
NSIs may provide explicit balancing adjustments for their national accounts. These are recorded as "discrepancy items" in the appropriate tables.
National Accounts figures, in contrast to foreign trade statistics, are not consolidated for intra-EU trade.
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. Moreover, the European aggregates are not suitable for implicit derivation of values for missing national series.
Further, country specific information may be found in the respective dedicated section of Eurostat’s website.
National accounts are a coherent and consistent set of macroeconomic indicators, which provide an overall picture of the economic situation and are widely used for economic analysis and forecasting, policy design and policy making.
Gross domestic product (GDP) is one of the key aggregates in the European system of accounts (ESA). GDP is a measure of the total economic activity taking place on an economic territory which leads to output meeting the final demands of the economy.
There are three ways of measuring GDP at market prices:
the production approach, as the sum of the values added by all activities which produce goods and services, plus taxes less subsidies on products;
the expenditure approach, as the total of all final expenditures made in either consuming the final output of the economy, or in adding to wealth, plus exports less imports of goods and services;
the income approach, as the total of all incomes earned in the process of producing goods and services plus taxes on production and imports less subsidies.
Data published in the following tables reflect these 3 approaches.
Breakdowns provided are based on the ESA Transmission Programme, which list all tables requested from the countries.
The annual tables under this collection are the following:
nama_10_gdp GDP and main components (output, expenditure and income)
nama_10_pc Main GDP aggregates per capita
nama_10_a10 Gross value added and income components by A*10 industry
nama_10_a64 Gross value added and income components by A*64 industry
Geographical entities covered are the European Union, the euro area, EU Member States, EFTA countries and Candidate Countries. Data from other countries (e.g. US, Japan and other countries) are received via the OECD and IMF and published in Eurobase in the naid_10 collection.
Data sources: National Statistical Institutes, Eurostat (for European aggregates)
28 January 2025
The following are brief definitions of concepts and variables from the European System of Accounts 2010 (ESA 2010). In general, the ESA 2010 which was published in the Official Journal as Annex A of Regulation (EU) No 549/2013 and amended by EU regulation 2023/734, may be referred to for more detailed explanations on methodology.
GDP - Gross domestic product
GDP at market prices is the final result of the production activity of resident producer units. It is defined in three ways:
a. GDP Output approach
From the production point of view GDP can be measured as the sum of the following components:
GDP = Total gross value added (B.1G) + Taxes less subsidies on products (D.21 less D.31)
where:
Gross Value Added (GVA)= Output (P.1) - Intermediate consumption (P.2)
b. GDP Expenditure approach
From the expenditure side, GDP can be measured as follows:
GDP =
Household and non-profit institutions serving households final expenditure (P.3 in S.14+S.15)
+ government final consumption expenditure (P.3 in S.13)
+ gross fixed capital formation (P.51)
+ changes in inventories (P.52)
+ acquisition less disposal of valuables (P.53)
+ exports (P.6)
- imports (P.7)
c. GDP Income approach
GDP =
Compensation of employees (D.1)
+ gross operating surplus and mixed income (B.2g and B.3g)
+ taxes less subsidies on production and imports (D.2 and D.3)
Note: GDP income components and other income measures are only available at current prices, because purely monetary flows cannot be decomposed into a price and a volume component. They may, however, be converted to "real terms" by applying an appropriate deflator.
National accounts aim to capture economic activity within the domestic territory. They combine data from a host of base statistics, and thus they have no common sampling reference frame. The elementary building blocks of ESA 2010 statistics are statistical units and their groupings. ESA 2010 defines two types of units, institutional units and local kind-of-activity units (ESA 2010, 1.54).
National accounts combine data from many source statistics. The concept of statistical population is not applicable in a national accounts’ context.
Eurostat publishes national accounts data for European Union, euro area, EU Member States, EFTA countries, candidate countries, the United States, Japan and other countries on an ad-hoc basis. Specific tables are dedicated to international data under the domain ‘National accounts – international data cooperation (naid_10)'.
Eurostat estimates the aggregates for the EU and the euro area. All other data are produced by the statistical offices of the respective countries. For further information on country data, you may also refer to National Statistical Institutes and National Central Banks (links given on the Eurostat website).
EU Member States and EFTA countries have legal obligations to submit their data to Eurostat as defined in the European System of Accounts ESA 2010 transmission programme of data. These data are the inputs for Eurostat's estimates of EU and the euro area. Since the United States, Japan and other third countries have no such obligation to transmit data to Eurostat, coverage is usually limited to key aggregates, and delays between national publication and availability on Eurostat's website may be longer. Note that for some countries not covered in the national accounts domain, some central aggregates such as GDP may be available from the general statistics domain of Eurostat's online database.
The accounting period is the calendar year, with temporal coverage varying across geographical units.
Eurostat publishes information on revisions on quarterly data of seasonally and working day adjusted volume GDP series – vintages of quarter-on-quarter growth rates and year-on-year growth rates – demonstrating the reliability of European GDP estimates. The revision triangles are available starting with Q1 2017 for the EU and Q1 2012 for the euro area. The files are regularly updated when newer reference periods become available.
Quality reports on national accounts, including revision analysis are also published by some Member States. Eurostat publishes a revision analysis of selected macro-economic indicators in the annual quality reports.
The GDP main aggregates data are presented using a range of unit measures including current price, volume and implicit deflator series. Please note that series are not available for all tables: For instance, figures related to EU average can only be derived after the estimation of the respective aggregate and the presentation focuses on the most relevant units for typical users.
Current price figures are typically expressed in (millions of) national currency and euro. They can be directly observed but include inflation effects. Additional units and ratios for current prices are derived and presented to facilitate comparisons of economic structures across time or countries.
National currency series in current prices (CP_MNAC) (including fixed euro series for euro area Member States) are transmitted by Member states and correspond to nationally published figures. They embed a volume and a price (inflation) component as well as an exchange rate when the national currency is not the Euro.
Euro series (CP MEUR) are derived from transmitted national currency series using historic exchange rates. They are suitable for internal comparison and aggregation. When comparing them over time, account must be taken of exchange rate effects.
For euro area Member States, the national currency series are converted into euros using the irrevocably fixed exchange rate. This preserves the same growth rates than for the previous national currency series. Both series coincide for years after accession to the euro area but differ for earlier years due to market exchange rate movements.
Purchasing Power Standards (PPS) (CP_MPPS) are fictive 'currency' units that remove differences in purchasing power, i.e. different price levels between countries. These parities are obtained as a weighted average of relative price ratios in respect to a homogeneous basket of goods and services, both comparable and representative for each country. They are fixed in a way that makes the average purchasing power of one euro in the European Union equal to one PPS. PPS series should be used for cross-country comparisons in a specific year but do not for comparisons over time since they do not constitute time series.
To facilitate the comparisons between countries, data are expressed in percent of the EU27 aggregate, e.g. using euro (PC_EU27_2020_MEUR_CP) or purchasing power standards (PC_EU_MPPS_CP).
Figures are also expressed in relation to total GDP (PC_GDP) or thetotal aggregate (PC_TOTAL) in case of breakdowns by industry to facilitate comparisons of the relative importance of the aggregates over time or across countries.
Volume figures show the development of aggregates excluding inflation. They are typically derived as previous year prices but presented as chain linked volumes, indices or various growth rates.
National accounts volumes for transactions concerning goods and services are estimated in previous year prices (PYP_MNAC or PYP_MEUR) to eliminate the influence of inflation. They are used to derive chain-linked volumes and included in the dissemination for advanced users to allow construction of custom aggregations and derived measures. Since the price base changes every year, the figures do not constitute a homogeneous time series.
Chain-linked level series obtained by successively applying previous year's price's growth rates to the current price figure of a specific reference year e.g. 2020 (CLV20_MNAC, CLV20_MEUR). Chain-linked volumes with 2005, 2010 and 2015 as reference year are still presented.
Chain-linking involves the loss of additivity for all years except the reference year and the directly following year, because these are the only periods expressed in prices of the reference year. For other years, chain-linked components of GDP will not sum to chain-linked GDP, and chain-linked Member States' GDP will not sum to chain-linked EU27 GDP.
In addition, chain-linking cannot be performed directly on variables that can take both negative and positive values. Therefore, no chain-linked series are provided for changes in inventories (P.52), acquisition less disposal of valuables (P.53) and the external balance (B.11, B.111 for goods only, B.112 for services only). These components are available only at current prices and at previous year's prices.
Index series (CLV_I20, CLV_I15, CLV_I10, CLV_I05) are derived by successively applying previous year's price's growth rates to an index value 100 in the reference year. The volume growth rates are equal with the growth rates in the level series mentioned above.
Growth rates represent the percentage change over previous period. In the case of annual data, this is the previous year. They are calculated for chain-linked series.t
Contributions to growth
reflect the fact that a change in GDP can be attributed to changes in its components, hence showing which component contributed strongly to economic growth and which did not. A component's contribution depends on both its size and its growth. They are calculated as percentage point change over previous period i.e previous year (CON_PPCH_PRE). Except for rounding effects, all contributions should sum up to the GDP growth rate. The method applied by Eurostat corresponds to the one described by INSEE. While most countries agreed that this method could be applied to derive contributions to growth for their countries also, some countries preferred to transmit data based on a slightly different method to be fully consistent with national dissemination. For these countries: Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Portugal data dissemination may therefore not be fully complete. For these countries, the data are marked with a (d) flag (definition differs). The information for these countries is the same as published nationally. You could find below reference to national methodology. The component and adjustment for which calculation are made in those countries may differ from other (full coverage otherwise).
NL: NL method for year on year series uses additive time series (constant prices, in average prices of the previous year) instead of the chain-linked series.
DK:DST website (In Danish) Please note that sign is inverted for “Final consumption expenditure of non-resident households on the economic territory”.
PT: The contribution of a component to GDP year-on-year rate of change is equal to the rate of change of the component weighted by its weight in GDP at the same quarter of the previous year. The contribution of a component to GDP quarter-on-quarter rate of change is equal to the rate of change of the component weighted by its weight in GDP at the previous quarter. The volume contributions are based on chain-linked volume series.
Implicit deflator series are derived as a ratio of current price to chain-linked volumes series and give indication of underlying price changes.
The series differ for national currency or euro series and can be expressed as an index (PD20_NAC, PD15_NAC, PD10_NAC, PD05_NAC or PD20_EUR, PD15_EUR, PD10_EUR, PD05_EUR) or growth rates (PD_PCH_PRE_NAC, PD_EUR, PD_PCH_PRE_EUR).
Eurostat compiles aggregate estimates for the euro area and the EU. The annual current price data for the euro area and the EU are derived using Member States' data as input, usually by adding up the aggregates for all Member States after expressing them in a common currency (euros).
EU chain-linked volumes are compiled from chain-linking EU data at previous year's prices, and not from summing Member States' chained series.
Figures expressed in Purchasing Power Standards are derived from figures expressed in national currency by using Purchasing Power Parities (PPP) as conversion factors.
Where single Member States' figures are not available, Eurostat may use unpublished estimates to impute country data and hence calculate the European aggregates.
More information can be found in the dedicated section of Eurostat’s website.
Eurostat publishes national accounts data for the European Union, euro area and country data (for EU Member States, EFTA countries, candidate countries, the United States, Japan and some other countries on an ad-hoc basis). Eurostat estimates the figures for EU and euro area (see section below '18.5. Data Compilation' for details); all the other data are produced by the statistical offices of the respective countries.
Countries use many sources to compile their national accounts, among them administrative data from government, population censuses, business surveys and household surveys. No single survey can hence be referred to. Sources vary from country to country and may cover a large set of economic, social, financial and environmental items, which need not always be strictly related to national accounts. In any case, there is no single survey source for national accounts.
In particular, different sources are used for calculating the different approaches of GDP mentioned above under '3.4 Concepts and definitions'. If more than one of these approaches is used, their results are usually balanced, i.e. forced to be coherent, so that a single value for GDP is obtained.
For further information about sources and collection methods in National Statistical Institutes (NSIs), please refer to National Statistical Institutes and National Central Banks (see Eurostat's web site, and after having chosen the language to be used, select menu: About us - European Statistical System - ESS Partners. You can find a list of National statistical institutes (NSI) and other national authorities in this PDF file).
The transmission requirements for each dataset are defined in the European System of Accounts (ESA 2010) transmission programme.
For annual data these are, in principle:
Main GDP aggregates (nama_10_ma): t+2 months and t+9 months.
Basic breakdowns of main GDP aggregates (by industry) (nama_10_bbr): t+2 months and t+9 months.
Detailed breakdowns of main GDP aggregates (by industry and consumption purpose) (nama_10_dbr): t+9 months and t+21 months.
Member States are required to transmit their data to Eurostat in compliance with the European System of Accounts ESA 2010 transmission programme, subject to derogations.
The comparability is insured by the application of common definitions (European System of Accounts ESA 2010).
By using a common framework, the European System of Accounts (ESA 2010), data can be comparable over time. Where series cannot be comparable over time, for example those expressed as a percentage of the total EU, then an explanatory note is presented with the series.
