Hagstofa Íslands (Statistics Iceland)

Business trends and structure

Borgartún 21a

150 Reykjavík

Iceland

Structural business statistics (SBS) describes the structure, conduct and performance of economic activities, down to the most detailed activity level (several hundred economic sectors).

SBS covers all activities of the non-financial business economy with the exception of agricultural activities and personal services. Limited information is available on banking, insurance and pension funds.

 Main characteristics (variables) of the SBS data category:

• Business demographic variables (e.g. Number of enterprises)
• "Output related" variables (e.g. Turnover, Value added)
• "Input related" variables: labour input (e.g. Employment, Hours worked); goods and services input (e.g. Total of purchases); capital input (e.g. Material investments)

Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community (NACE): NACE Rev.1 was used until 2001, NACE Rev. 1.1 since 2002, and NACE Rev 2 is used from 2008 onwards. Key data were double reported in NACE Rev.1.1 and NACE Rev.2 for 2008. From 2009 onwards, only NACE Rev.2 data are available.

The regional breakdown of the EU Member States is based on the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS). Detailed information about the consecutive NUTS Regulations can be found at Eurostat's website

The product breakdown is based on the Classification of Products by Activity (CPA) as stated in the Regulation establishing CPA 2008 and its amending  Commission Regulation (EU) No 1209/2014  (from reference year 2015 onwards)

The SBS coverage was limited to Sections C to K of NACE Rev.1.1 until 2007. Starting from the reference year 2008 data is available for Sections B to N and Division S95 of NACE Rev.2. With 2013 as the first reference year information is published on NACE codes K6411, K6419 and K65 and its breakdown.

The statistical characteristics are defined in Annex I of Commission Regulation (EC) No 250/2009

For the statistical units we use legal units who, in most cases, are the same as the enterprise. 

All companies and individuals engaging in market activity in the relevant NACE rev2 categories.

Iceland.

Data are available for year 2008 onwards.

Not applicable.

• Number of enterprises and number of local units are expressed in units.
• Monetary data are expressed in millions of €.
• Employment variables are expressed in units.
• Per head values are expressed in thousands of € per head.

Ratios are expressed in percentages.

2020

Year 1995 was the first year for the implementation of the Council Regulation No 58/97 (SBS Regulation).

The Council Regulation No 58/97 has been amended three times: by Council Regulation No 410/98, Commission Regulation No 1614/2002 and European Parliament and Council Regulation No 2056/2002. As a new amendment of the basic Regulation it was decided to recast the Regulation No 58/97 in order to obtain a new "clean" legal text. The European Parliament and Council Regulation No 295/2008 was adopted on 14/02/2008 and the provisions of this Regulation are applicable from the reference year 2008. Regulation No 295/2008 has been amended by Commission Regulation (EU) No 446/2014.

Not applicable.

Data is not confidential

Data is not confidential

See Statistics Iceland release calendar: https://statice.is/publications/news-archive/advance-release-calendar/

See Statistics Iceland release calendar: https://statice.is/publications/news-archive/advance-release-calendar/

Data is available on the Statistics Iceland website.

Annual

Yearly publication of data, either with news release or updating data only. Newest news release in english: https://statice.is/publications/news-archive/enterprises/structural-business-statistics-2019/

Annually: Eurostat regional yearbook 2016 and Europe in figures - Eurostat yearbook

Frequently: Statistics Explained

On the Eurostat Website dedicated to Business economy by sector - NACE Rev. 2

Please consult free data on-line (https://px.hagstofa.is/pxen/)  or refer to contact details.

 None

Data are sent to Eurostat and published on Statistics Iceland website.

Quality policy of Statistics Iceland (in English): https://statice.is/about-statistics-iceland/statistics-iceland-policies/quality-and-security-policy/

Quality policy of Statistics Iceland (in English): https://statice.is/about-statistics-iceland/statistics-iceland-policies/quality-and-security-policy/

Quality policy of Statistics Iceland: https://statice.is/about-statistics-iceland/statistics-iceland-policies/quality-and-security-policy/

Statistics Iceland is a professionally independent research institution which develops, produces and disseminates statistics about society. Statistics Iceland’s policy is to work according to sound methodology and appropriate statistical procedures based on impartiality, objectivity and statistical confidentiality. Furthermore, the Statistics Iceland’s objective is to produce accurate, reliable, coherent and comparable statistics in accordance with the needs and expectations of its users and in a timely, user friendly and secure manner.

Quality policy of Statistics Iceland: https://statice.is/about-statistics-iceland/statistics-iceland-policies/quality-and-security-policy/

Since first published in 2015, SBS statistics have received extensive news coverage and interest from all relevant user groups.

No index for user satisfaction is available.

The dataset is complete from 2008. There are no gaps or missing data parts.

 Administrative data is used. The response rate in terms of turnover is approx 97%.

Not applicable

Administrative data is used. The response rate in terms of turnover is approx 97%.

Preliminary data is normally sent to Eurostat within 10 months after the end of the reference year and final data is sent 18 months after the end of the reference year.

Data is sent to Eurostat with the accepted time lag. T+10 for preliminary data and T+18 for final data.

 Icelandic SBS data is comparable to data from other countries and EU aggregates

All data available is comparable over time.

Non confidential national and EU data are released at the finest possible level of detail. Yet the general principle "the higher the level of aggregation (the more aggregated the data), the better the quality" applies to SBS. Detailed data for small countries have to be used with a certain caution.

Data on Structural business statistics can be found in the following related domains:

Regional statistics, environmental protection expenditure statistics, research and development, labour cost statistics, labour force survey, European business trends, short-term statistics.

In these collections data similar to SBS can be found. It should be noted that methodological differences exist which can explain inconsistencies. Apparent inconsistencies between SBS data and the data from labour cost statistics, labour force survey and short term statistics have been examined.

The OECD also collects and disseminates enterprise statistics in its new Structural Business Statistics Database, containing the database known as SSIS (Structural Statistics for Industry and Services) and SEC (Statistics by Enterprise Size Class). In order to reduce the response burden on member countries and to harmonise SBS data collections between Eurostat and OECD, the OECD sources since 2004 data from Eurostat for EU countries (according to the terms of a "Memorandum of Understanding" signed by both organisations). Comparable data on other OECD countries is collected by the OECD and made available to Eurostat.

Data is coherent

Statistics Iceland uses administrative data for compiling SBS statistics to minimize burden.

Statistics Iceland revision policy: https://www.statice.is/about-statistics-iceland/revision-policy/

Statistics Iceland revision policy. https://www.statice.is/about-statistics-iceland/revision-policy/

Yearly Tax Returns from the Tax Authority

PAYE data from Tax Authority

VAT data from Tax Authority

Annual data collection

The tax return database is updated yearly with data from the previous year and PAYE data is updated yearly as well. 

Annual data collection

The tax return database is updated yearly with data from the previous year and PAYE data is updated yearly as well. 

At Eurostat level data is validated before publishing. A number of logical checks between different variables are performed and the consistency of data over time is checked as well.

Data is compiled according to European Parliament and Council Regulation No 295/2008  

Monetary characteristics of the different countries are converted to and/or rounded to millions of euro.

 No additional comments