Statistical Office of the European Communities (Eurostat)

Unit G2: European businesses

2920 Luxembourg LUXEMBOURG

Business demography statistics provide information about the life cycle of businesses and their development over time. They also show how the economic contribution of the business economy in terms of employment develops across a number of enterprise characteristics.

• The EU Member States transmit BD annually to the European Commission (Eurostat) on the basis of European legislation.
• BD covers all activities of the business economy with the exception of agricultural activities and public administration. The data are provided by all EU Member States, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland, some candidate and potential candidate countries.
• Most of the data is collected by National Statistical Institutes (NSIs) and are drawn from business registers, although some countries improve the availability of data on employment and turnover by integrating other sources.

The annual Business demography data collection covers variables which explain the characteristics and demography of the business population. The methodology allows for the production of data on enterprise births (and deaths), that is, enterprise creations (cessations) that amount to the creation (dissolution) of a combination of production factors and where no other enterprises are involved (enterprises created or closed solely as a result of e.g. restructuring, merger or break-up are not considered).

A summary of the available indicators is listed below. The data is available at EU, country and regional level, with breakdowns for type of activity, legal form and size class.

For the population of active enterprises:

• Number of active enterprises
• Number of enterprise births
• Number of enterprise survivals up to five years
• Number of enterprise deaths
• Related variables on employment: 'employees' and 'persons employed' (employees and self-employed persons)

For the population of active employer enterprises:

• Number of enterprises having at least one employee
• Number of enterprises having the first employee
• Number of enterprises having no employees anymore
• Number of enterprise survivals
• Related variables on employment: 'employees' and 'persons employed' (employees and self-employed persons)

For high-growth enterprises, the following indicators are available at EU and country level:

• Number of high-growth enterprises (growth by 10% or more)
• Number of employees of high-growth enterprises
• Number of young high-growth enterprises (up to five years old high-growth enterprises)
• Number of employees of young high-growth enterprise

More information on the contents of different tables: the detail level and breakdowns required starting with the reference year 2021 is defined in Commission Regulation 2019/2152 (‘EBS Regulation’) and Regulation (EU) 2020/1197 (‘EBS General Implementing Act’) concerning European Business Statistics.
A list with the available derived indicators is available below in the Annexes.

From 2008 onwards NACE Rev.2 classification (Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community) is used for all indicators.

The regional breakdown of the EU Member States BD data at NUTS1, NUTS2 and NUTS3 level is based on the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS).
Country codes and names are based on the interinstitutional style guide.

Starting with reference year 2021, BD data cover the economic activities of market producers within the NACE Rev. 2 Sections B to N, P to R and Divisions S95 and S96. The total economy is presented as Industry, construction and services (code BTSXO_S94).

For the reference years 2008-2020, data for the Sections P, Q, R and S were provided on a voluntary basis and K64.2 was not covered.

The term business demography is used here to cover a group of variables which explain the characteristics and demography of the business population. The creation of new enterprises and the closure of unproductive businesses can be seen as an important contributor to business dynamism. In addition to studying the population of active enterprises, the counts and characteristics of enterprise births and deaths are examined. Special attention is paid to the impact of these demographic events on employment. In order to provide information on the impact of enterprise births, their development will be followed for five years in order to see how they survive and grow.

A methodology has been developed for the production of data on enterprise births (and deaths), that is, enterprise creations (cessations) that amount to the creation (dissolution) of a combination of production factors and where no other enterprises are involved. In other words, enterprises created or closed solely as a result of e.g. restructuring, merger or break-up are not included in this data. The methodology of enterprise birth and death is described in the Eurostat-OECD Manual on Business Demography Statistics . The methodology and definitions are based on those of the Business Registers Recommendations Manual and Glossary, because the Business Registers serve as the sources for the Business Demography data. However recent updates of the BD requirements and definition are not included in that manual and have to be checked in the latest legal acts.

The harmonised data collection (started in 2002) aimed to provide comparable data on business demography for European Union (EU) and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) members. In particular it aims to satisfy the anticipated requirements for the indicators used for supporting the Europe 2020 strategy. It also provided key data for the joint OECD-Eurostat "Entrepreneurship Indicators Programme".
With the reference year 2021 BD collection continues with new additional requirements.

The definitions of the concepts of births, deaths, survivals and activity are as followed:

Enterprise

The enterprise is the smallest combination of legal units that is an organisational unit producing goods or services, which benefits from a certain degree of autonomy in decision-making, especially for the allocation of its current resources. An enterprise carries out one or more activities at one or more locations. An enterprise may be a sole legal unit.

Enterprise Birth

A birth amounts to the creation of a combination of production factors with the restriction that no other enterprises are involved in the event. Births do not include entries into the population due to mergers, break-ups, split-off or restructuring of a set of enterprises. It does not include entries into a sub-population resulting only from a change of activity.
A birth occurs when an enterprise starts from scratch and actually starts activity. An enterprise creation can be considered an enterprise birth if new production factors, in particular new jobs, are created. If a dormant unit is reactivated within two years, this event is not considered a birth.

Employer Enterprise Birth

Birth of an enterprise with at least one employee. This population consists of enterprise births that have at least one employee any time in the birth year and of enterprises that existed before the year in consideration, but were below the threshold of one employee.
In other words, "employer enterprise births" comprise all "enterprise births" of a given year minus the non-employer births of the same year plus former non-employer enterprises that have become employers in the given year. Therefore the dataset on "employer business demography" does not have any size class "0 employees" but usually has higher number of "employer births" particularly in size class "up to 4 employees".
As employer enterprise with one employee might be created later in the year, rounded annual average might be 0, however enterprise still belong to employee size class 1 to 4 employees.

Enterprise Death

A death amounts to the dissolution of a combination of production factors with the restriction that no other enterprises are involved in the event. Deaths do not include exits from the population due to mergers, take-overs, break-ups or restructuring of a set of enterprises. It does not include exits from a sub-population resulting only from a change of activity.
An enterprise is included in the count of deaths only if it is not reactivated within two years. Equally, a reactivation within two years is not counted as a birth.
For the reference year t normally only preliminary death data are available as it is not yet known if enterprise will be reactivated in t+2 or not. Countries have different approaches in estimating preliminary enterprise death.
Employer enterprise death
An employer enterprise death occurs either as an enterprise death with at least one employee in the year of death or as an exit by decline, moving below the threshold of one employee.
This is the opposite event to the employer enterprise birth. "Employer enterprise deaths" comprise all "enterprise deaths" of a given year minus the non-employer deaths of the same year plus former employer enterprises that have become non-employers in the given year. Therefore the dataset on "employer business demography" usually has higher number of "employer deaths" particularly in size class "up to 4 employees" than the complete dataset covering also non-employers in size class "0 employees".

Survival

In the Business Demography context, survival occurs if an enterprise is active in terms of employment and/or turnover and/or investment in the year of birth and the following year(s). Two types of survival can be distinguished:

1. An enterprise born in year xx is considered to have survived in year xx+1 if it is active in terms of turnover and/or employment and/or investment in any part of year xx+1 (= survival without changes).
2. An enterprise is also considered to have survived if the linked legal unit(s) have ceased to be active, but their activity has been taken over by a new legal unit set up specifically to take over the factors of production of that enterprise (= survival by take-over).

Survival data are recorded in the same activity and the same employee size class as in the year of birth. A change of activity within 5 years is not so frequent, but often there is observed an increase in the number of employees in survival enterprises, however for survival data breakdown is used the same employee size class as in the year of birth. It means that survival data by employee size class are not really comparable with active enterprises by employee size class in the same reference period.

Activity

Within the Business Demography context, activity is defined as any turnover and/or employment and/or investment in the period from 1st January to 31st December in a given year. This definition complements the concept of activity in the Business Registers glossary. In 'employer business demography' an enterprise is considered active as long as it has at least one employee at any moment of year.

High-Growth Enterprises and young High-Growth Enterprises (Gazelles) (growth can be measured by the number of employees - classical definition - or by turnover)

• Commission implementing regulation (EU) No 439/2014 set the definition and compulsory collection of high-growth enterprises with at least 10 employees in the beginning of their growth and having average annualised growth in number of employees greater than 10% per annum, over a three year period. The new EBS Regulation (Commission Regulation 2019/2152) and its implementing act (Regulation (EU) 2020/1197) continue this requirement.
• An additional requirement is to provide the young high-growth enterprises that are up to five years old (Gazelles) with average annualised growth of employees greater than 10% per annum, over a three year period. As growth over three years period is observed, the real age of young enterprises is five and four years.
• Data on high-growth by turnover are provided on voluntary basis.

In the Eurostat-OECD Manual on Business Demography Statistics on Business Demography there are described different definitions of high-growth enterprises.

The statistical unit is the enterprise, with a few exceptions for some countries using as approximation legal unit in the period of transition to the statistical unit enterprise.

The target population is the market enterprises. The business registers of the participating countries are used as data sources. The data sets from the business registers are processed to produce data on births, deaths and survivals, as well as to obtain related indicators on employment. In principle there is no size threshold, although in practice for the business registers of some countries there might be a threshold due to the coverage criteria of sources used to establish and update the register. In the additional datasets on employer business demography, the threshold is set to one employee at any time of the reference period following the definition. Similar, as mentioned above, a threshold of 10 employees is used to define the population of high-growth enterprises in the beginning of growth as required by definition. In addition a threshold of age is used for 'gazelles'.

The data collection covers EU Member States, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and some EU Candidate and potential candidate countries.

From the reference year 2021, BD data are available following new requirements, however they are comparable (if not break in series mentioned) with previous years.
For the period 2004 - 2020 BD data available in NACE Rev.2  .
In NACE Rev 1, BD data are generally available from 1997 for enterprise stocks and deaths, from 1998 for enterprise births and from 1999 for survivals until 2007.

Not applicable.

Basic variables (active, birth, death and survival enterprises as well as high-growth enterprises and their employment) are in absolute figures. Derived indictors can be expressed in absolute figures (i.e. average size of enterprise) or in percentages (i.e. birth rate). The complete list of all business demography indicators is attached in the Annexes.

The basic reference period is the year. There are two types of variables in the data set, namely the number of enterprises and employment (persons employed and employees).

• The population of active enterprises refers to any enterprises that were active at any time in the reference period, even for a limited time.
• Births refer to units born 'from scratch' without the involvement of other units during the reference period.
• Deaths relate to real enterprise deaths during the reference period. However deaths are not confirmed until after two years to exclude the possibility of a unit reactivating. Therefore, final data on deaths and related variables are reported one year later than the other data.
• Employment is an annual average head count calculated over the calendar year.

Starting with reference year 2021 two new regulations currently form the legal basis of Business demography:

• EU regulation 2019/2152 on European business statistics (EBS)
• EU regulation 2020/1197 on technical specifications and arrangements (general implementing act) pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/2152.

Past regulations:
Up to reference year 2006 data have been collected under gentlemen's agreement within the context of the development of Structural Business Statistics.

• Regulation (EC) No 295/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 2008 concerning structural business statistics (recast), Annex IX.
• Commission implementing regulation (EU) No 439/2014 of 29 April 2014 ensured data collection on employer enterprises (with at least one employee), high-growth enterprises (more than 10% annual growth over three years) and their employment.

Eurostat makes available all non-confidential data on its dissemination website.

If data are of truly confidential nature according to the above mentioned regulation, they have to be flagged confidential, and they will not be published by Eurostat.
Eurostat makes available all non-confidential data on its dissemination website.

Confidentiality - if data are of truly confidential nature according to the above mentioned regulation, they have to be flagged confidential, and they will not be published by Eurostat.

Eurostat publishes BD data by the following calendar:

• T + 13 months: Eurostat publishes preliminary data on high-growth enterprises
• T + 22 months: Eurostat publishes validated detailed country level data
• T + 24 months: Eurostat publishes validated regional level data

Plese consult the online release calendar on Eurostat website, under "Industry, Trade and Service" theme.

In line with the Community legal framework and the European Statistics Code of Practice Eurostat disseminates European statistics on Eurostat's website (see item 10 - 'Accessibility and clarity') respecting professional independence and in an objective, professional and transparent manner in which all users are treated equitably. The detailed arrangements are governed by the Eurostat protocol on impartial access to Eurostat data for users.

Annual

News releases on-line

Publications - Business demography 

Annualy: Eurostat regional yearbook (in English)

Please consult free data on-line or refer to contact details.

Not applicable.

Eurostat website: Home 

Business demography dedicated webpage

The Eurostat-OECD Manual on Business Demography Statistics outlines the methodology to be used for the production of the data in the national statistical institutes. For more information, please contact the domain manager.

Quality profile on 'Business Demography' statistics is available on Eurostat's website.

As from the reference year 2008 Member States have been providing Eurostat with regular (annual) quality reports covering most of the categories of the ESS Standard for Quality Reports. Eurostat prepares a summary quality reports which is discussed in a yearly meeting with Member States.

According to the information available from the quality reports, data are of good or very good quality.

Business demography data collection was developed in cooperation with the main users. The information is used by different users (European Commission services, international organisations, ECB, national governments and central banks, economic analysts in private companies and financial institutions, journalists, researchers etc.) and serves different purposes.

Eurostat has not organized a user survey yet.

Data was collected on a voluntary basis until and including reference year 2006. Not all Member States are therefore covered yet. Starting with reference year 2007 data collection has become mandatory. Backdata on birth for the years 2004-2007, according to NACE Rev.2, were also required.

Starting with the reference year 2008, all Member State should provide business demography data, except those variables for which countries have derogations.

Data are taken from the business register and therefore the accuracy depends on its quality. In addition, the methodology and definitions for the source data are based on the Eurostat-OECD Manual on Business Demography Statistics which provides the guidelines to be used for the data production. The general use of the Manual by the Member States may ensure high accuracy of the data collected.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Data generally should be published within 2 calendar years of the end of the reference year.

In the case of indicators on enterprise deaths, a two year lag is foreseen in the methodology in order to confirm whether a presumed death is in fact reactivated. For this reason information on final deaths is generally available later than the stock of enterprises and enterprise births.

EU regulation 2019/2152 on European business statistics (EBS) and its implementing act, EU regulation 2020/1197 require the EEA countries to send annual data within the following months after the end of the reference year:

• T + 12 months: preliminary high-growth enterprises
• T + 18 months: active, birth and survival enterprises; preliminary death enterprises; final high-growth enterprises
• T + 20 month: active, birth and survival employer enterprises; preliminary death employer enterprises
• T + 22 months: regional level data
• T+30 months: final death enterprises
• T+32 months: final death employer enterprises
• T+34 months: final regional death enterprises

Although the business demography statistics is produced in a unified way based on the recommendations manual, some differences stemming from the data sources can occur that restrict the data comparability across countries.

Different administrative sources depending on national law, as well as surveys, are used to update the business registers. More importantly the presence of different size thresholds in business registers may have a substantial impact on comparability especially on data for start-ups.

Soon there will be available country specific metadata on the methodology used for the data production of Business Demography.

Restrictions in comparability over time are related to the construction of the indicator and the small size of the time series presently available.

Number of active enterprises and employment in them is collected and published also by Structural Business statistics domain. The aim is to have the same values, however for time being values still can differ due to different focus of collections. 

In between Eurostat releases, Member States may revise their figures; Eurostat publishes the new Member States' figures shortly after reception but does not recalculate the EU aggregates until the next scheduled EU release (twice per year). Geographical coherence may thus be lost for a brief period. In turn, a certain stability of annual aggregates is assured.

In general, business demography data collection does not impose additional burden and cost, as the basic information is available in the national business registers.

The general Eurostat revision policy applies to this domains and is further specified by the following revision practice for Business Demography Statistics.

New data are used to update disseminated data according to the provision schedule set by Eurostat, following the dissemination of late transmitted data, or in cases of reported errors.

• Business Demography Statistics for countries may be published even if some data is missing, or flagged as provisional or of low reliability. Provisional data is replaced once final data are transmitted and validated.
• Where the impact is small, European aggregates are not updated immediately for consistency with late transmitted or corrected country data. European aggregates for past reference years (t-1 or t-2) are regularly updated together with the release of aggregates for a new reference year (t).
• All reported errors result in corrections of the disseminated data. Reported errors that are significant (having important impact on European aggregates) are corrected in the disseminated data as soon as the correct data have been validated and European aggregates recalculated. Such rare events can happen between European aggregates releases.

Data were provided in all cases by national statistical institutions. The national business registers serve as the sources for the business demography data. Business registers hold data on the creation and cessation of enterprises, their economic activity, their legal form, employment, turnover, and other information. No samples are drawn from the registers, but the full registers are processed.

Some differences in the coverage among the countries can occur. Different administrative sources depending on national law, as well as surveys, are used to update the business registers, and in some countries VAT thresholds for registration apply (see Country Metadata soon).

Annual

Although practices vary somewhat between countries the data processing starts by establishing a series of annual snapshots of the business register. The populations in each of these snapshots are then matched in order to identify the target populations and to be able to follow each unit across the time period considered. Other sources may then be used to update some of the information (such as employment or turnover). Data for active enterprises are obtained from the business registers by checking for activity. A unit is considered active if it shows employment and / or turnover and / or investments during any time of a calendar year. Births and deaths are separated from other creations and cessations by eliminating mergers, take-overs, break-ups and split-offs. ID numbers are used to identify all new enterprises. Thus, reactivations of inactive units can be followed as well. A reactivation of an enterprise after more than two years is considered a birth, while a death is confirmed only after two years of inactivity.

Data are pre-validated by countries as well as automatically validated at reception by toolsprovided by Eurostat. Aditionally, special comparison is done to ensure consistency between different data collections.

Coherence between variables is also verified, for example to ensure that there are not more surviving enterprises in a stratum than there were births the previous year. A number of apparent inconsistencies exist for methodological reasons. For example, if employment is measured in full-time equivalents, then it is possible to have a lower level of employment in a stratum than there are enterprises. All inconsistencies are verified with the data provider and methodological notes made of any practices that explain apparent incoherence.

Starting with the reference year 2009 EU aggregates are available.

Data related to the number of enterprises as well as related employment data are reported as units.

Not applicable.

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.