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.
Statistical Office of the European Union (Eurostat)
1.2. Contact organisation unit
C1: National accounts methodology; Standards and indicators
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
9 August 2024
2.2. Metadata last posted
30 April 2025
2.3. Metadata last update
30 April 2025
3.1. Data description
Regional accounts are a regional specification of the national accounts and therefore based on the same concepts and definitions as national accounts (see domain nama10). The main specific regional issues are addressed in chapter 13 of ESA2010, but not practically specified. For practical rules and recommendations on sources and methods see the publication "Manual on regional accounts methods".
Gross domestic product (GDP) at market prices is the final result of the production activity of resident producer units. In regional accounts it can be calculated from:
1. Output approach
GDP is the sum of gross value added of the various institutional sectors or the various industries plus taxes and less subsidies on products (which are not allocated to sectors and industries). It is also the balancing item in the total economy production account.
2. Income approach
GDP is the sum of uses in the total economy generation of income account: compensation of employees plus gross operating surplus and mixed income plus taxes on products less subsidies plus consumption of fixed capital.
Contrary to national accounts GDP is not compoled from the expenditure side in regional accounts due to data limitations on the inter-regional flows of goods and services.
The different measures for the regional GDP are absolute figures in € and Purchasing Power Standards (PPS), figures per inhabitant and relative data compared to the EU Member States average.
3.2. Classification system
Regional classification: NUTS Level 2 and Level 3: Eurostat NUTS.
Economic classification: High-level aggregation (A6/A10) of NACE Rev 2: Eurostat.
3.3. Coverage - sector
Regional Accounts are not available for all institutional sectors. There are only regional accounts for the household sector, and transactions are limited to income distribution and redistribution.
3.4. Statistical concepts and definitions
The regional gross domestic product (GDP) is used in order to measure and compare the economic activity of regions. It is the most important indicator for the selection of regions eligible for support under the investment for growth and jobs goal of the EU's regional policy.
Regional gross domestic product data are Eurostat estimates based on a harmonized methodology. Figures for gross value added at basic prices are used as the basic variable for the estimates. Extra-regio data (i.e. value added created in national regions than on national territory, e.g. in embassies, foreign army bases, offshore energy production, etc.) is treated like any other region; however as there is no population in the extra-regio there is no GDP per capita for the extra-regio.
The conversion to purchasing power standards (PPS) is based on national purchasing power parities (PPP) which are also regularly calculated and released by Eurostat. Regional PPP are not available. All regional accounts data published by Eurostat are based on PPP for the EU Member States.
For the methods of data compilation and collection see the publication "Manual on regional accounts methods": Products manuals and guidelines.
3.5. Statistical unit
National accounts deal with the economy (or large sub-sectors) as a whole. They combine data from a host of base statistics, and thus have no common sampling reference frame. The elementary building block of ESA2010 statistics is the institutional unit, which is defined as an elementary economic decision-making centre characterised by uniformity of behaviour and decision-making autonomy in the exercise of its principal function. This can be, inter alia, a household, a corporation or a government agency. Institutional units producing goods and services are often engaged in a combination of activities at the same time. As regards the regional GDP, the economy is considered as a whole but the regional level is calculated according to the regional breakdown, called NUTS 1, 2 and 3 (see this website: Eurostat overview).
3.6. Statistical population
Regional Accounts combine data from many source statistics. Per inhabitant figures are obtained by dividing absolute figures by the total population. With the implementation of ESA2010, i.e. since the end of 2014, NSIs have to transmit this data as part of the mandatory ESA2010 data transmission programme.
When the annual regional GDP release is prepared, the regional population data is grossed up to the corresponding national population data which NSIs transmitted as part of the ESA2010 data transmission programme for national data. This grossing up ensures coherence between regional and national population data at the time of the regional GDP release. Due to this grossing up the regional population data (Table nama_10r_3popgdp) disseminated under the heading Regional economic accounts (nama_10r) is not identical with the regional population data available under the regional demographic statistics.
3.7. Reference area
European Union Member States, Candidate and potential Candidate Countries, Norway and Switzerland.
3.8. Coverage - Time
Regional accounts according to ESA2010 is available as from the reference year 2000 with a few exceptions which are listed in the annex.
3.9. Base period
Not applicable.
Depending on the variable values are shown in in National Currency, Euros, Purchasing Power Standards, thousands of persons and thousands of hours worked, growth rates or Index 2015=100.
The periods referred to are calendar years. Data cover the period from 2000 to 2023 for GDP, total Value Added and total employment for NUTS 2 regions.
For NACE breakdowns, NUTS 3 and other variables the reference period is 2000-2022, but in some cases, countries voluntary transmitted also 2023 data.
6.1. Institutional Mandate - legal acts and other agreements
The Council Regulation (EC) No 549/2013 of 21 May 2013 on the European System of National and Regional Accounts - OJ L 174 of 26 June 2013, is the legal base for the calculation of the regional Gross Domestic Product: Eur-lex.europa.
6.2. Institutional Mandate - data sharing
Regional GDP data released by Eurostat are public and not sent to any other institution.
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 or the embargo has expired.
Regional accounts data is very rarely confidential but in some cases NSI's include a confidentiality flag.
8.1. Release calendar
The annual Regional GDP dataset is released between 10 of February and 20 of February of each year.
As the precise date of release of the regional GDP dataset depends on the data availability and national release dates, the regional GDP dataset is treated as a so-called ad-hoc release and is not listed in the 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, figures on Eurostat's press release are sent for information to the European Commission Directorate General for Regional and Urban Policy (DG REGIO) under embargo the evening before official release of data.
Annual.
Regional accounts are released based on data transmissions by Member States at the end of December of each year. Data are processed and checked and disseminated only on the day of the GDP release (February each year).
Please consult NSI's websites to obtain national dissemination calendars. Releases of regional accounts data at Member State level are not synchronised, but in general Member States always release before Eurostat.
10.4. Dissemination format - microdata access
Not applicable, as regional accounts only consist of aggregated data.
10.5. Dissemination format - other
None.
10.6. Documentation on methodology
European legislation and guidelines are explained in ESA2010: Eur-lex.europa.
Regional accounts are subject to Eurostat’s process quality management.
11.1. Quality assurance
Quality is assured by strict application of ESA 2010 concepts and by thorough validation of the data delivered by countries.
11.2. Quality management - assessment
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: REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL on the application of Regulation (EU) No 549/2013.
12.1. Relevance - User Needs
Users of regional accounts data are typically interested in cross-region and cross-country comparisons and in analysing structural changes in the economy from a medium-term perspective.
12.2. Relevance - User Satisfaction
User Satisfaction is monitored regularly in the context of Eurostat’s user satisfaction surveys. For regional accounts it is generally high.
12.3. Completeness
Regional GDP data are complete as from reference year 2000 with the exception of some historical data. For Iceland ESA2010 regional GDP is not yet available.
For other variables please refer to the annex.
13.1. Accuracy - overall
Overall accuracy increases with the size of the region concerned, e.g. NUTS2 data is more accurate than NUTS3 data.
13.2. Sampling error
Not applicable as regional accounts consist of aggregated data only.
13.3. Non-sampling error
Not applicable as regional accounts consist of aggregated data only.
14.1. Timeliness
The deadline for the transmission of basic data from NSIs to Eurostat is at the moment T + 12, for NUTS 2 data for total Value Added, total employment and population, and T + 24 months, for all the other data.
14.2. Punctuality
Punctuality has been improved. Nearly all Member States meet the deadlines; late arrivals of the most important indicators are a matter of days.
15.1. Comparability - geographical
The comparability is ensures by the application of common concepts and definitions (European System of Accounts ESA2010). Between regions comparability is ensured by the NUTS classification.
15.2. Comparability - over time
In case of revisions, NSIs usually revise the entire time series. If this is not feasible immediately the break in the time series is shown by the flag “b”. It is important to note that GDP data revisions at national level, which are published in domain nama10, also lead to revisions of regional GDP data at the next release, even if the regional source data may not have been revised.Eurostat uses the latest national available figures for GDP and population to gross-up the regional figures.
15.3. Coherence - cross domain
Regional data is broadly coherent with national accounts figures when they are released. However national data is revised throughout the year, mainly between May and October, whereas Regional GDP is revised only once per year. As a result the revisions of national data that occur after the regional release lead to differences between the data in domain nama10_r and nama_10 and nasa_10.
15.4. Coherence - internal
Regional data are coherent between NUTS0, NUTS1, NUTS2 and NUTS3 levels.
Regional GDP data are based on other statistics, in particular national accounts and business statistics data, i.e. there is no additional burden on respondents. Production costs for NSIs depend on the number of regions and the data sources. For EU Member States human resources requirements for all regional accounts data (i.e. regional GDP, regional branch data and regional household accounts) are normally limited, normally between 1 and 5 full time equivalents per Member State.
Revisions are also published when changes of the NUTS classifications are implemented. When a new NUTS classification is implemented, those Member States for which the regional breakdown has changed have two years to transmit back data.
17.2. Data revision - practice
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.
Revisions of regional GDP and regional population data are applied to Eurostat's reference database when a new set of regional GDP data is released, i.e. only once per year.
Revisions of data other than regional GVA, GDP and population are published when countries transmit the revised data, but with few exceptions only one annual data transmission is done by countries.
Changes in methodology may also occur as a result of implementing new EU Regulations. Any such change will be commented at the time of the first data release after the changes.
More specific information for the release of a particular year is available in the Annex.
18.1. Source data
Basic data (i.e. gross value added, population data and the national GDP) used for the calculation of the regional gross domestic product are provided by the National Statistical Institutes' Accounts Departments. The basic statistics come from many sources, including administrative data from government, censuses, and surveys of businesses and households. 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 one single survey source for National Accounts.
For further information about sources and collection methods in National Statistical Institutes (NSIs), please refer to National Statistical Institutes.
18.2. Frequency of data collection
Data are transmitted at the end of December, though updates can be sent throughout the year.
18.3. Data collection
Data in ESA 2010 are transmitted via SDMX which introduced standardised codes. National Accounts combine data from many source statistics.
18.4. Data validation
Source data undergo a sequence of checks within NSIs. Eurostat checks the data transmitted by NSIs for completeness (coverage of reference periods and variables), internal consistency (accounting consistency and consistency over time and/or branches), external consistency (coherence with national data from annual national accounts), various plausibility checks and revisions.
In some cases, issues cannot be resolved quickly and are followed up by Eurostat and NSIs in order to solve them in future transmissions.
18.5. Data compilation
Aggregates for the EU are taken from annual national accounts at the time of the regional release and not updated until the next regional accounts release.
18.6. Adjustment
Before every release regional GDP data are adjusted to the national GDP values by Eurostat. This adjustment only takes place once per year with the regional GDP release.
Geographical consistency: The sums of regional GDP data coincide with the national data published in national accounts at the time of the regional GDP release.
However, national GDP data are more frequently updated than regional GDP. This means that there may be a difference between the national and/or European aggregates and the corresponding sums of the regions.
Purchasing Power Standards (PPS): It is important to note that PPP are calculated at national level only; this means that for a given country and a given year the same PPP is applied for all regions of that country.
Regional accounts are a regional specification of the national accounts and therefore based on the same concepts and definitions as national accounts (see domain nama10). The main specific regional issues are addressed in chapter 13 of ESA2010, but not practically specified. For practical rules and recommendations on sources and methods see the publication "Manual on regional accounts methods".
Gross domestic product (GDP) at market prices is the final result of the production activity of resident producer units. In regional accounts it can be calculated from:
1. Output approach
GDP is the sum of gross value added of the various institutional sectors or the various industries plus taxes and less subsidies on products (which are not allocated to sectors and industries). It is also the balancing item in the total economy production account.
2. Income approach
GDP is the sum of uses in the total economy generation of income account: compensation of employees plus gross operating surplus and mixed income plus taxes on products less subsidies plus consumption of fixed capital.
Contrary to national accounts GDP is not compoled from the expenditure side in regional accounts due to data limitations on the inter-regional flows of goods and services.
The different measures for the regional GDP are absolute figures in € and Purchasing Power Standards (PPS), figures per inhabitant and relative data compared to the EU Member States average.
30 April 2025
The regional gross domestic product (GDP) is used in order to measure and compare the economic activity of regions. It is the most important indicator for the selection of regions eligible for support under the investment for growth and jobs goal of the EU's regional policy.
Regional gross domestic product data are Eurostat estimates based on a harmonized methodology. Figures for gross value added at basic prices are used as the basic variable for the estimates. Extra-regio data (i.e. value added created in national regions than on national territory, e.g. in embassies, foreign army bases, offshore energy production, etc.) is treated like any other region; however as there is no population in the extra-regio there is no GDP per capita for the extra-regio.
The conversion to purchasing power standards (PPS) is based on national purchasing power parities (PPP) which are also regularly calculated and released by Eurostat. Regional PPP are not available. All regional accounts data published by Eurostat are based on PPP for the EU Member States.
For the methods of data compilation and collection see the publication "Manual on regional accounts methods": Products manuals and guidelines.
National accounts deal with the economy (or large sub-sectors) as a whole. They combine data from a host of base statistics, and thus have no common sampling reference frame. The elementary building block of ESA2010 statistics is the institutional unit, which is defined as an elementary economic decision-making centre characterised by uniformity of behaviour and decision-making autonomy in the exercise of its principal function. This can be, inter alia, a household, a corporation or a government agency. Institutional units producing goods and services are often engaged in a combination of activities at the same time. As regards the regional GDP, the economy is considered as a whole but the regional level is calculated according to the regional breakdown, called NUTS 1, 2 and 3 (see this website: Eurostat overview).
Regional Accounts combine data from many source statistics. Per inhabitant figures are obtained by dividing absolute figures by the total population. With the implementation of ESA2010, i.e. since the end of 2014, NSIs have to transmit this data as part of the mandatory ESA2010 data transmission programme.
When the annual regional GDP release is prepared, the regional population data is grossed up to the corresponding national population data which NSIs transmitted as part of the ESA2010 data transmission programme for national data. This grossing up ensures coherence between regional and national population data at the time of the regional GDP release. Due to this grossing up the regional population data (Table nama_10r_3popgdp) disseminated under the heading Regional economic accounts (nama_10r) is not identical with the regional population data available under the regional demographic statistics.
European Union Member States, Candidate and potential Candidate Countries, Norway and Switzerland.
The periods referred to are calendar years. Data cover the period from 2000 to 2023 for GDP, total Value Added and total employment for NUTS 2 regions.
For NACE breakdowns, NUTS 3 and other variables the reference period is 2000-2022, but in some cases, countries voluntary transmitted also 2023 data.
Overall accuracy increases with the size of the region concerned, e.g. NUTS2 data is more accurate than NUTS3 data.
Depending on the variable values are shown in in National Currency, Euros, Purchasing Power Standards, thousands of persons and thousands of hours worked, growth rates or Index 2015=100.
Aggregates for the EU are taken from annual national accounts at the time of the regional release and not updated until the next regional accounts release.
Basic data (i.e. gross value added, population data and the national GDP) used for the calculation of the regional gross domestic product are provided by the National Statistical Institutes' Accounts Departments. The basic statistics come from many sources, including administrative data from government, censuses, and surveys of businesses and households. 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 one single survey source for National Accounts.
For further information about sources and collection methods in National Statistical Institutes (NSIs), please refer to National Statistical Institutes.
Annual.
Regional accounts are released based on data transmissions by Member States at the end of December of each year. Data are processed and checked and disseminated only on the day of the GDP release (February each year).
The deadline for the transmission of basic data from NSIs to Eurostat is at the moment T + 12, for NUTS 2 data for total Value Added, total employment and population, and T + 24 months, for all the other data.
The comparability is ensures by the application of common concepts and definitions (European System of Accounts ESA2010). Between regions comparability is ensured by the NUTS classification.
In case of revisions, NSIs usually revise the entire time series. If this is not feasible immediately the break in the time series is shown by the flag “b”. It is important to note that GDP data revisions at national level, which are published in domain nama10, also lead to revisions of regional GDP data at the next release, even if the regional source data may not have been revised.Eurostat uses the latest national available figures for GDP and population to gross-up the regional figures.
