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.
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 up to five years
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
3.2. Classification system
From 2008 onwards NACE Rev.2 classification (Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community) is used for all indicators.
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.
3.4. Statistical concepts and definitions
BD constitutes an important and integrated part of the EU Regulation 2019/2152 on European Business Statistics (EBS Regulation).
A unit was considered to be active if it had either turnover or employment during at least a part of the reference period. If there was insufficientinformation on turnover or employment to determine, whether or not the unit was active, additional sources were used. Information used in determining the activity status of a unit, is received from:
the Tax Board — information on units, which have paid taxes;
the Customs Board — information on units, which have made export/import trade transactions;
the Commercial Register — information on liquidations and bankruptcy of enterprises, data from annual bookkeeping reports;
statistical surveys — structural business statistics survey (EKOMAR), surveys on labour and wages, short-term statistics surveys, etc.— statistical data
The methodological recommendations were strictly followed. The statistical unit is the enterprise as a legal unit. The Business Registerfor Statistical Purposes includes all economic units that participate in producing GDP, except households. It includes units of all sizeclasses both in terms of employment and turnover. All required activities by NACE Rev.2 are covered.
3.5. Statistical unit
The statistical unit is enterprise.
There is partial conformity with the definition in the regulation. In Estonia most of legal units are equal to enterprise. These units produce goods or services, benefit from a certain degree of autonomy in decision-making, have acomplete set of accounts, carry out one or more activities at one or more locations. In some exceptional cases (e.g. all the employmentis recorded in a legal unit serving other legal units of a group) enterprise is implemented in business register and one unit from a group(enterprise) reports consolidated characteristics to SE, including the SBS characteristics.
3.6. Statistical population
The target population is the private sector economy, including all active enterprises. In the additional datasets on employer business demography, the threshold is set to one employee at any time of the reference period. Thefollowing thresholds are used:
1 employee - population of employer enterprises,
10 employees in the beginning of the growth - population of high-growth enterprises (10%)
3.7. Reference area
Estonia
3.8. Coverage - Time
Length of time series 2000-2022
3.9. Base period
Not applicable.
The number of active, birth, death and survival enterprises, as well as high-growth enterprises is expressed in units.
The number of employees is counted as head counts and is expressed in units.
The number of persons employed is the sum of number of employees and self-employed persons.
The number of self-employed persons is the average number of persons who were at some time during the reference period the sole owners or joint owners of the statistical unit in which they work, measured in annual average headcounts, expressed in units.
Derived indicators are expressed in units or percentages
2022
6.1. Institutional Mandate - legal acts and other agreements
Starting with reference year 2021, two new regulations form the legal basis of BD statistics:
Before reference year 2021, EU Regulation 2008/295 on structural business statistics, Annex IX, was providing a legal basis for the BD data collection. The Commission implementing EU Regulation 2014/439 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.
Up to reference year 2006 data have been collected under gentlemen's agreement within the context of the development of Structural Business Statistics.
6.2. Institutional Mandate - data sharing
Not applicable.
7.1. Confidentiality - policy
Starting from 1st of April 2019 the new reduction of The Official Statistics Act came into force. Due to that some aspects in confidentiality treatmenthave changed.
7.2. Confidentiality - data treatment
The data has to be classified into groups of at least three persons (primary confidentiality — too few enterprises).
The number of enterprises itself is publishable if the related employment variables are confidential
The share of data relating to each enterprise in aggregate data exceeds x% is confidential (primary confidentiality — one enterprise dominates the data, x denotes dominance limit in Statistics Estonia and its value is confidential).
To protect the primary confidential cells the secondary confidential cells were determined by using R package sdcTable.
In 2022, there were 2129 confidentiality flags
7.2.1. Confidentiality rules (primary and secondary)
Data treatment
Remarks
Confidentiality rules applied
yes
Threshold of number of enterprises (Number)
3
The data has to be classified into groups of at least three persons (primary confidentiality — too few enterprises).
Number of enterprises non confidential, if number of employments is confidential
yes
Dominance criteria applied
yes
If dominance criteria is applied, specify the threshold (in %) and the method of applying the dominance rules
value is confidential
The share of data relating to each enterprise in aggregate data exceeds x% is confidential (primary confidentiality — one enterprisedominates the data, x denotes dominance limit in Statistics Estonia and its value is confidential).
Secondary confidentiality applied
yes
To protect the primary confidential cells the secondary confidential cells were determined by using R package sdcTable.
If secondary confidentiality is applied, explain the rules and the methods used
Usually the neighbour cell or the cell with the lowest value was chosen
7.2.2. Measures taken to reduce the number of confidential cells
Remarks
Measures taken to reduce the number of confidential cells
no
No specific measures
If measures have been taken, describe them briefly
No specific measures
Impact of these measures
No specific measures
8.1. Release calendar
Business Demography data is normally published in Statistics Estonia public database annually in the end of June.
8.2. Release calendar access
Statistics Estonia release calendar is available at
To assure the quality of processes and products, Statistics Estonia applies the EFQM Excellence Model, EU Statistics Code of Practice and the ESS Quality Assurance Framework (QAF).
Statistics Estonia is also guided by the requirements provided for in § 7. "Principles and quality criteria of producing official statistics" of the Official Statistics Act.
11.2. Quality management - assessment
The overall assessment of the quality of Business Demography data is good. Data quality is in accordance with principles of accuracy and reliability, timeliness and punctuality, coherence and compatibility.
12.1. Relevance - User Needs
Unit does not have regular consultations with Business Demography data users
12.2. Relevance - User Satisfaction
Unit has not organised any surveys to the users satisfaction regarding the published Business Demography data
12.3. Completeness
All data series and variables presented 100%
12.3.1. Data completeness - rate
Availability rate for all data series is 100%
13.1. Accuracy - overall
Not requested.
13.2. Sampling error
Not applicable.
13.2.1. Sampling error - indicators
Not applicable.
13.3. Non-sampling error
The frozen frame which was compiled for the collection of the SBS data of the year 2021 was used as a basis. According to theinformation, received later from the statistical surveys and from the Tax and Customs Board the non-active units were excluded and active units were included to the populations.
13.3.1. Coverage error
Not requested.
13.3.1.1. Over-coverage - rate
Not requested.
13.3.1.2. Common units - proportion
Not requested.
13.3.2. Measurement error
Not applicable.
13.3.3. Non response error
Not applicable.
13.3.3.1. Unit non-response - rate
Not applicable.
13.3.3.2. Item non-response - rate
Not applicable.
13.3.4. Processing error
The frozen frame which was compiled for the collection of the SBS data of the year 2022 was used as a basis. According to the information, received later from the statistical surveys and from the Tax and Customs Board the non-active units were excluded and active units were included to the populations.
To avoid any processing errors, all automatically found matches were manually checked.
In 2022 HDC manually checked births — 7124 of which real birth was confirmed for 6903. In 2022 HDC manually checked deaths — 8938 of which real death was confirmed for 8554.
13.3.5. Model assumption error
Not requested.
14.1. Timeliness
In general the timeliness of the data is good.
Business Register is updated monthy and is based onon the administrative Commercial Register and Tax and CustomsBoard.
The statistical profile – active population, that Statistics Estonia uses for the production of business statistics and what is compiled at the end of each year – was used for the compilation of the active population of Business Demography. According to the information,received later from the statistical surveys and from the Tax and Customs Board the non-active units were excluded and active units were included tothe populations.
14.1.1. Time lag - first result
Not requested.
14.1.2. Time lag - final result
Not requested.
14.2. Punctuality
BD data series were sent to Eurostat with a delay. Due to revisions made to the 2021 data files, the 2022 year data files had to be resend several times, as they were connected to the data sets of previous years.
14.2.1. Punctuality - delivery and publication
Not requested.
15.1. Comparability - geographical
Not requested.
15.1.1. Asymmetry for mirror flow statistics - coefficient
Not applicable.
15.2. Comparability - over time
First reference year available (calendar year): 2000
Breaks in time series and reasons for the breaks:
The data have been published since 2000. Until 2012 (incl.) the data covered non-financial corporations and financial intermediation enterprises (economic activities B to S of the Estonian Classification of Economic Activities (EMTAK) 2008 (based on NACE Rev. 2)) and sole proprietors with 20 or more employees. As of 2013, all sole proprietors are observed.
The time series of published data was changed as a result of the administrative reform at the end of 2017. The data for 2017 were published twice – based on the administrative division prior to the reform and based on the new division.
Outliers in time series: no
15.2.1. Length of comparable time series
2000-2022.
15.3. Coherence - cross domain
The Business Demography data collection is based on active enterprises in the National Business Register (NSBR). All entities registered in Estonia are entered into the NSBR. The NSBR provides a frame of active economic entities for each year, comprising only the entities that were active in a given year, including those that were active only for a certain period of the year. The frame of active economic entities (also referred to as the statistical profile) compiled by November of each year is used as the frame for annual statistics for that year and for the short-term statistics for the following year, from which samples are drawn. The frame of entities compiled by November does not include data for the whole year and is therefore referred to as the initial frame of active economic entities.
The final frame covers entities that were active during calendar year, including those that were only active in the final months of the year. The main source for updating the frame of active economic entities are annual reports. These can also be used to identify the `signs of life` indicating economic activity of micro-enterprises, i.e. enterprises that are not registered for VAT (annual turnover up to 40,000 euros) and have no paid employees and for which no other sources of information are available.
The coherence between BD and SBS data is better in terms of employment than in terms of number of enterprises. The difference in employment was around 2% and difference in number of enterprises was around 8%. The difference between SBS and BD is mainly caused by the inclusion of sole proprietors in BD. SBS follow National Accounts(NA) definition and is the main data-source for non-financial corporations' sector.
The data of BD and BR is not comparable because of different scope. According to the BD Manual: „At present indicators includemarket oriented legal forms (e.g. limited liability companies, sole proprietors, partnerships, and public corporations), but exclude units in the central and local government sectors“. BR includes also Non-profit institutions, which are not market oriented units. We would like to propose to amend BD Manual and add more precise explanation of the scope of BD population.
15.3.1. Coherence - sub annual and annual statistics
Not requested.
15.3.2. Coherence - National Accounts
Not requested.
15.4. Coherence - internal
Not requested.
Not requested.
17.1. Data revision - policy
There are no special policy other than following common methodology.
17.2. Data revision - practice
The differences between the preliminary and final data are due to limits of information available at the time.
17.2.1. Data revision - average size
There are no specific revisions.
18.1. Source data
a) Type of data source: The main sources for updating the SBR: Tax and Customs Board, Commercial Register, Register survey for new registered enterprises, statistical surveys (SBS, STS, etc)
b) Coverage of SBR (Statistical Business Register): All the required activities by NACE Rev.2 and legal forms are covered.
Business Register for statistical purposes covers the following legal forms:
natural person
sole proprietor
sole proprietor engaged in farming
company
private limited company
public limited company
general partnership
limited partnership
commercial association
European company (SE)
non-profit association
foundation
branch of foreign company
central government institution
local government institution
Business Register for statistical purposes includes all size classes of units both in terms of employment and turnover. The obligation to register for VAT purposes arises when economic operator's taxable supply exceeds 40,000 euros as calculated from the beginning of a year.
c) Matching, profiling or imputation:
The Business Demography HDC was carried out according to methodological guidelines.
The data on birth and death dates are available and were collected from following sources:
unified structural business statistics questionnaire (EKOMAR)
18.1.1. Concepts and sources
ADMINISTRATIVE DATA:
Data from the Centre of Registers and Information Systems
DATA FROM OTHER STATISTICAL ACTIVITIES
Data from statistical activity 20901 “Business register for statistical purposes” are used.
18.2. Frequency of data collection
Annual.
18.3. Data collection
Business demography variables are compiled from the national statistical business register.
18.3.1. Data matching
a) Data matching process and tools:
Based on the methodological guidelines a special software was developed for matching the data. Checking process was made easier as all thpossibility to enter the result for matching on the same screen was created.
Matching process was carried out using the recommended pair-wise approach in the following order:
NACE Rev.2 + location (match X1 / Y1)
Name + location (match X2 / Y2)
NACE Rev.2+ name (match X3 / Y3)
Matches ‘NACE Rev.2 + location’ and ‘NACE Rev.2 + name’ were performed on different NACE levels (on 4 digit and 3 digit level). All matches were manually checked. All checks of the format and plausibility checks on the datasets were performed.
b) Matching:
In addition, following was used:
1) Links between legal units that have been recorded in the Business Register for Statistical Purposes. Sources for that information are:
Legal registers — data about mergers and split-off;
Structural business statistics survey (EKOMAR) — information related to the take-over of LoKAU units.
2) Data of ownership. In case another legal unit controlled the unit, the parent company was investigated to verify the type of the creation/cessation of new/ceased unit. Different sources of information (annual report, homepage, direct contact) were used.
3) All new/ceased large enterprises were manually checked.
4) All new units, with no employees but exceptionally high turnover were manually checked.
All automatically found matches were manually checked with help of special tool prepared for this task. All necessary information about new/closed enterprises and their pairs was available and helped making decisions whether, matches were true or false. Both, real births and real deaths were designated in a similar way.
In matching multi-site units on location the addresses of local units were used.
If a unit had more than one address in the register (e.g. legal address, contact address, operating address) matches were searched for all addresses of the unit.
In 2022 there were 4016 reactivations detected in birth population.
18.3.2. Manual checks
In 2022 were manually investigated 60 new large enterprises, 34 of them were confirmed as real birth.
In 2022 were manually investigated 34 ceased large enterprise, and 16 of them were confirmed as real death.
it covers all births and deaths of enterprises with 20 or more employees. All large enterprises were manually investigated. The sample was not used.
This approach covers all enterprises with large turnover, but without employees. The sample was not used.
In 2022 — 214 (83%) of large births were confirmed as real births (manually checked 257)
In 2022 — 162 (76%) of large deaths were confirmed as real deaths (manually checked 212)
All units of real large births and deaths were limited liability companies.
In order to verify the accuracy of the results, the manual control was carried out. These have been concentrated on large changes (decline or growth) in employment. To realize this, the employment data comparison was conducted between years 2021 and 2022, we checked all enterprises that had more than 5 employees in the next year after the birth year, and change by more than a factor of 3 (i.e. employment after the change is greater than 300 or more percentage).
The goal of this checking is to improve the quality of the statistics, as according to our experience the data of the year of birth does not express the real number of employees.
18.4. Data validation
Before sending to Eurostat, the following checks are performed: hierarchical, inter-variable plausibility and completeness.
18.5. Data compilation
All necessery information for BD data producing are availiable in NSBR. So, there are no any estimated data
18.5.1. Imputation - rate
Not requested.
18.6. Adjustment
Not applicable.
18.6.1. Seasonal adjustment
Not applicable.
No further comments
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 up to five years
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
30 December 2024
BD constitutes an important and integrated part of the EU Regulation 2019/2152 on European Business Statistics (EBS Regulation).
A unit was considered to be active if it had either turnover or employment during at least a part of the reference period. If there was insufficientinformation on turnover or employment to determine, whether or not the unit was active, additional sources were used. Information used in determining the activity status of a unit, is received from:
the Tax Board — information on units, which have paid taxes;
the Customs Board — information on units, which have made export/import trade transactions;
the Commercial Register — information on liquidations and bankruptcy of enterprises, data from annual bookkeeping reports;
statistical surveys — structural business statistics survey (EKOMAR), surveys on labour and wages, short-term statistics surveys, etc.— statistical data
The methodological recommendations were strictly followed. The statistical unit is the enterprise as a legal unit. The Business Registerfor Statistical Purposes includes all economic units that participate in producing GDP, except households. It includes units of all sizeclasses both in terms of employment and turnover. All required activities by NACE Rev.2 are covered.
The statistical unit is enterprise.
There is partial conformity with the definition in the regulation. In Estonia most of legal units are equal to enterprise. These units produce goods or services, benefit from a certain degree of autonomy in decision-making, have acomplete set of accounts, carry out one or more activities at one or more locations. In some exceptional cases (e.g. all the employmentis recorded in a legal unit serving other legal units of a group) enterprise is implemented in business register and one unit from a group(enterprise) reports consolidated characteristics to SE, including the SBS characteristics.
The target population is the private sector economy, including all active enterprises. In the additional datasets on employer business demography, the threshold is set to one employee at any time of the reference period. Thefollowing thresholds are used:
1 employee - population of employer enterprises,
10 employees in the beginning of the growth - population of high-growth enterprises (10%)
Estonia
2022
Not requested.
The number of active, birth, death and survival enterprises, as well as high-growth enterprises is expressed in units.
The number of employees is counted as head counts and is expressed in units.
The number of persons employed is the sum of number of employees and self-employed persons.
The number of self-employed persons is the average number of persons who were at some time during the reference period the sole owners or joint owners of the statistical unit in which they work, measured in annual average headcounts, expressed in units.
Derived indicators are expressed in units or percentages
All necessery information for BD data producing are availiable in NSBR. So, there are no any estimated data
a) Type of data source: The main sources for updating the SBR: Tax and Customs Board, Commercial Register, Register survey for new registered enterprises, statistical surveys (SBS, STS, etc)
b) Coverage of SBR (Statistical Business Register): All the required activities by NACE Rev.2 and legal forms are covered.
Business Register for statistical purposes covers the following legal forms:
natural person
sole proprietor
sole proprietor engaged in farming
company
private limited company
public limited company
general partnership
limited partnership
commercial association
European company (SE)
non-profit association
foundation
branch of foreign company
central government institution
local government institution
Business Register for statistical purposes includes all size classes of units both in terms of employment and turnover. The obligation to register for VAT purposes arises when economic operator's taxable supply exceeds 40,000 euros as calculated from the beginning of a year.
c) Matching, profiling or imputation:
The Business Demography HDC was carried out according to methodological guidelines.
The data on birth and death dates are available and were collected from following sources:
unified structural business statistics questionnaire (EKOMAR)
Business Demography data is disseminated annually in Statistics Estonia public database.
Business Register is updated monthy and is based onon the administrative Commercial Register and Tax and CustomsBoard.
The statistical profile – active population, that Statistics Estonia uses for the production of business statistics and what is compiled at the end of each year – was used for the compilation of the active population of Business Demography. According to the information,received later from the statistical surveys and from the Tax and Customs Board the non-active units were excluded and active units were included tothe populations.
Not requested.
First reference year available (calendar year): 2000
Breaks in time series and reasons for the breaks:
The data have been published since 2000. Until 2012 (incl.) the data covered non-financial corporations and financial intermediation enterprises (economic activities B to S of the Estonian Classification of Economic Activities (EMTAK) 2008 (based on NACE Rev. 2)) and sole proprietors with 20 or more employees. As of 2013, all sole proprietors are observed.
The time series of published data was changed as a result of the administrative reform at the end of 2017. The data for 2017 were published twice – based on the administrative division prior to the reform and based on the new division.
