Hungarian Central Statistical Office (HCSO)

Population Census and Demographic Statistics Department, Housing Statistics Section

H-1525 Budapest P.O.B. 51, Hungary

Building permits: number of dwellings and total surface area of all buildings. Data cover Section F of NACE Rev. 2. Source of data is an exhaustive survey accomplished by HCSO. Data are provided monthly by building authorities.

Dwelling construction permits: permits issued in the course of the year to carry out construction activity. The review covers the number of dwellings to be built according to the permits. The construction of residential units below 300 sqm may be started with a simple declaration of intention. Such declarations are also counted as permits in data collection.

Classification of Types of Constructions (CC)

The survey covers Sections F of NACE Rev. 2.

As regards the definitions of variables used in practice of the HCSO the Commission Implementing Regulation 2020/1197 is the standard source.

Dwelling construction permits: permits issued or declarations referring to carry out construction activity. From 2016, residential buildings below 300 sqm may be started with a simple declaration. The survey covers the number of dwellings assessed in the permits.

Useful floor area: that part of the whole area surrounded by walls, where the inner height exceeds 1.90 m.

The overall useful floor area does not include:

construction areas (e.g. areas of demarcation components, supports, columns, pillars, shafts, chimneys) functional areas for ancillary use (e.g. areas occupied by heating and air-conditioning installations or by power generators) thoroughfares (e.g. areas of stairwells, lifts, escalators). The part of the overall useful floor area of a building used for residential purposes includes the area used for kitchens, living rooms, bedrooms and ancillary rooms, cellars and common rooms used by the owners of the residential units.

As regards the definitions of variables used in practice of the HCSO the Commission Implementing Regulation 2020/1197 is the standard source.

Government offices

The building permits and simple declarations of dwelling starts.

Territory of Hungary. The whole national territory is covered and the activities performed outside the national territory is not taken into account in this variable.

Data of issued new construction permits and time series are available from 2011 in STADAT-tables. The topic itself has been observed since 1998.

Natural data are published, no base period is considered.

Number of buildings, dwellings and total square meter are collected for all major building types.

Month, year.

At European level:

• Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics concerning short term statistics.
• Commission Implementing Regulation 2020/1197 laying down technical specifications and arrangements pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics concerning short term statistics. (General Implementing Act)
• STS data requirements overview June 2021
• STS data requirements by country size June 2021

All relevant regulations can be found in the STS section on Eurostat’s website under Statistics => Short-term business statistics => Legislation

At national level:

• The Act CLV of 2016 on Statistics (the Hungarian Statistical Law)
• Government Decree on the National Statistical Data Collection Programme enacting the surveys of reference period.

Additional information in English can be found here.

Regulation (EU)  2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics concerning short term statistics.

At European level:

• Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics concerning short term statistics.
• Commission Implementing Regulation 2020/1197 laying down technical specifications and arrangements pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics concerning short term statistics. (General Implementing Act)
• Council Regulation (EC) No 1165/98 of 19 May 1998 concerning short term statistics; Regulation (EC) No 1165/98 is repealed with effect from 1 January 2024.

All relevant regulations can be found in the STS section on Eurostat’s website under Statistics => Short-term business statistics => Legislation

At national level:

• The Act CLV of 2016 on Statistics (the Hungarian Statistical Law);
• Act CXII of 2011 on Informational self-administration and freedom of information.
• Additional information in English can be found here.
• The confidentiality policy of HCSO is available on its website

HCSO ensures confidentiality for all the data reported by data providers and the exclusive use of the data for statistical purposes. We disseminate only aggregated data in full compliance with the rules of confidentiality. Individual data, as well as aggregated data consisting of fewer than 3 enterprises are regarded as confidential and therefore not published. Researchers have access to de-identified data sets and to anonymised micro data for scientific purposes with appropriate legal and methodological guaranties in place. As for the employees, they can work with datasets in their competence with registered and controlled access rights. For details see Information on confidentiality for data providers on the website of HCSO.

All of the features of dissemination activity are consistent with the Dissemination and Communication Policy of Hungarian Central Statistical Office. In the elaboration of this document the

• The Act CLV of 2016 on Statistics (the Hungarian Statistical Law)
• Act CXII of 2011 on Right of Informational Self-Determination and Freedom of Information and
• Regulation 223/2009/EC of EP and Council on European Statistics provided the most important legal basis. Furthermore, Dissemination Policy is in line with the Quality Declaration of ESS, the Code of Practice and Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics.

(Since the last update of Dissemination Policy of HCSO a new statistical law has been adopted in Hungary and the European Statistical law has been amended, but the changes do not affect the principals of Dissemination Policy.)

HCSO has a public Dissemination calendar that contains the dissemination dates of all First releases. The public dissemination calendar (Catalogue) on the website of HCSO provided information not only the first releases but the analyses, methodological publications, promotional publications, reports, statistical reflections, yearbooks and pocketbooks. Both calendars are prepared in line with the annual dissemination programme.

A public dissemination calendar of the first releases is accessible and it can be downloaded in Excel format by everyone via the website of HCSO. It provides information about publish date, the date of any modification, the title of publication, the reference period or date and the date of inclusion in the database.

First releases and the related databases are published at 9 a. m. on the day provided in the Dissemination calendar. Some key user groups are subjected to other rules because of their special role in the economic and political life. Journalists can read the first release in the Press Room at 8:30 a. m. but they are allowed to transmit their reports at 9 a. m. after the publication of HCSO. Certain first releases are sent to the members of the government and the President of the National Bank of Hungary at 5 p. m. on the day prior to the publication after closure of the Budapest Stock Exchange. Within the given ministry and the National Bank of Hungary responsible use of our data is ensured by strict rules.

The data in first releases, in dissemination database and in other tables are open for everyone after the publication.

Monthly Building permit data were published in the HCSO under Summary tables (STADAT).

STADAT-tables

Monthly

The “Quarterly first release” and the adjoining STADAT tables contain data of new construction permits issued and declarations made to build residential buildings and non-residential buildings. The first release can be found on the website of HCSO.

• New dwelling construction permits, dwelling put to use;
• Number and useful floor area of construction permits issued for residential buildings;
• New construction permits issued for residential buildings by settlement types
• Number and useful floor area of construction permits issued for non-residential buildings;
• New construction permits issued for non-residential buildings, by settlement types and other data about dwelling constructions.
• The first release can be found on the website of HCSO.

Building permit data are available in comprehensive publications of HCSO such as Statistical Yearbook.

Dissemination database

Dissemiantion database – STATINFO

In HCSO the following four data access channels are available only for researchers for scientific purposes. The HCSO performs a researcher accreditation procedure for all data requests for these four data access channels.

• Safe Centre access

The HCSO offers access to deidentified microdata sets for scientific purposes in the safe environment of the Safe Centre operated by the HCSO in Budapest.

• Remote access

The offers access to deidentified microdata sets for scientific purposes in the safe environment of the remote access points operated by the HCSO under the same access conditions as the Safe Centre access.

• Remote execution

For scientific purposes, the HCSO produces the requested research outputs inside its own safe environment based on the specifications/syntax files provided by the researcher.

• Release of anonymised microdata sets

By using this data access channel the HCSO provides anonymised microdata sets for the researcher for scientific purposes.

Stadat (the acronym stands for statistical data), which involves mostly time series can be found on the HCSOs website. STADAT includes plenty of data in ready-made tables with methodological notes. The tables can be downloaded but the user cannot transform them. (While working with the dissemination database the user can assemble a cross table, elements to the table columns and rows can be added as well as filters can be applied).

Data transmission to Eurostat each month. The transmission is carried out in html format via eDAMIS system.

There are methodological notes on HCSOs website about concepts and description of the statistical domain. Additional methodological comments can be found in STADAT system.

User-oriented quality reports on statistical domains are prepared in the framework of methodological documentation and are published as metainformation on the HCSO website: Methodological documentation .

An internal HCSO regulation is in place regarding the preparation of producer-oriented quality reports for each statistical domain on a yearly basis.

In case of some statistical domains – concerning first releases – quality check is carried out and documented each month for the management of HCSO. However, this report is not published.

The HCSO Quality Policy lays out the principles and commitments related to the quality of statistics. The documentis consistent with the goals set out in the Mission and Vision statements andwith the principles of the European Statistics Code of Practice and is publicly available on the HCSO website.

The European Statistics Code of Practice is available on the website of the HCSO. Also, HCSO together with the member-organisations of the Hungarian Official Statistical Service created a National Statistics Code of Practice based on the European Statistics Code of Practice.

Quality Guidelines are meant to ensure the quality of the statistical processes. The document has been in place since 2007 (1st revision in 2009, 2nd revision in 2014 and 3rd revision is currently ongoing). The latest version (2014) is available on the HCSO website.

Procedures are in place in order to ensure updated documentation on product quality. (See above about Quality Documentation in 10.7) Apart from the internal reports, quality reports are regularly provided to Eurostat as well.

Commission Implementing Regulation 2020/1197 laying down technical specifications and arrangements pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics concerning short term statistics. (General Implementing Act)

The concepts and methods are based on European legislation. The most important foreign user is Eurostat. For internal use, data provide useful information about expected dwelling starts.

Not available.

All government offices which issue building permits and/or control simple declarations are surveyed. Non-respondents are checked and controlled individually. Data have been collected since 1998. From that point of time there are no breaks in time series. STADAT system and dissemination database provide annual time series from 2001, monthly time series from 2013 as well as quarterly one from 1998. There are no breaks in time series.

This is a census, hence the concept of bias is not applicable. Data of building permits are transmitted monthly by local building authorities to HCSO data collection unit. Building authorities that have not issued permits in the actual month also send a questionnaire reporting zero figures. Completeness of arriving questionnaires are always checked before first estimates are made. Since all authorities that may issue building permits report to HCSO there may not occur coverage error. At the end of the year the annual total number of building starts are also reported by the same authorities which is a second control of coverage. In the last few years we have not experienced missing reports on the basis of annual summary reports. HCSO uses an IT system (called ELEKTRA) to collect data via online questionnaires. Only fully filled-in electronic questionnaire may be submitted. This excludes item non-response.

Not applicable.

Coverage errors: there is no coverage error.

Data collection or access errors: building starts without permits or declaration are not observed.

Response rate: there is no non-response error. Built-in checks within the online questionnaire provide for completeness. Late respondents are checked and interviewed before finalising data. These data are always arrived, there has not been non-response.

Editing, coding and imputation errors: there is no numerical information.

Modelling errors: we do not use statistical models for this domain.

The “Quarterly first release” is published about 45 days after the reference period. The STADAT-tables are published about 2 months after the reference period.

The publications are in agreement with the dissemination calendar. There are no time lags.

Over the data collection and calculation domestic and non-domestic markets are interpreted according to the area of Hungary. The whole country is treated in a uniform manner from a statistical point of view. The same statistical concepts can be applied for all of the territory. All data sources cover the regions fully. There are no difficulties concerning the geographical comparability.

Dissemination database consists of time series data from 1998.

Construction data are confronted with the annual survey of building permits, completed constructions and cessations by settlements. Building authorities compare these data and make an account of all building permits which are issued at the end of each year in a separate data collection (nr. 1077). Here the number of started constructions, the number of those that has not been started and also that of cancelled constructions are reported on settlement level. The annual number of finished constructions which are put to use is also reported in this data collection. This assures that data are checked and controlled on settlement level and therefore enhances data quality on more aggregated levels, too. Building permits’ number show close correlation with housing completions with a certain time-lag. The connection between building permits’ trends and Production in Construction index is weaker as housing construction is only a minor part of the activity of total construction sector.

Data provided in sqm refer to the same buildings provided in the number of dwellings.

Cost (NSI hours per year): Data are secondary utilisation of otherwise existing data collection therefore its costs appear at the original use of data.

Burden (Respondents hours per year): 3095

A revision in official statistics is defined as any change in a value of a statistic released to the public. The fundamental aim of revision is to improve data quality and thereby to be more accurate when reflecting the reality.

HCSO published its renewed revision policy in 2018. The revision policy is in line with the following conceptual frameworks:

• the official statistical principles of the UN
• the European Statistics Code of Practice
• the “ESS guidelines on revision policy for PEEIs”, which have been approved by the European Statistical Committee in February, 2012
• the quality guidelines of the HCSO
• the Dissemination and Communication Policy of the HCSO
• finally, the HCSO takes into consideration the deadlines of mandatory international data transmissions and publication
• HCSO considers any change in the value of already published data as data revision. Revisions take place for a number of distinct reasons, which tend to break into four groups:
• incorporation of better source data (e.g. replacement of first/provisional estimates based on expert judgements, or as a result of benchmarking)
• capturing routine recalculations (e.g. updating the base period)
• reflection of improved methodology (e.g. changes in concepts, definitions or classifications)
• correction of errors

Taking into account the various causes of revisions and the different frequencies of publications, the HCSO – in correspondence with international guidelines – distinguishes the following types of revisions:

• Routine revisions: routine revisions are changes in published data which are related to the regular statistical business process. Routine revisions mainly occur when the incorporation of late information (new or the correction of already obtained) modifies the already published results or in the case of benchmarking.

Routine revisions are conducted periodically, according to a schedule drawn up in advance. With some sets of statistics (e.g. in foreign trade), a number of revisions are needed to obtain final results, while in other cases the provisional results are replaced by final data in the course of one single revision. Routine revisions barely affect the applied methodology, and only a few periods (some months or quarters) back in time are revised and longer revisions take place at a lower frequency, e.g. annually.

• Major/methodological revisions: Major revisions are changes in published data, often substantial, which are due to changes in definitions, classifications and methodologies. Updating of the weights of the base year of an index series, the availability of a new structuralsource that is only collected at long intervals (5 to 10 years), such as the census, and the entry into force of a new legal act may also cause major revisions.

Major revisions are planned very well in advance and users are informed beforehand on the forthcoming major revisions. They are less frequent than routine revisions and occur only every 5 to 10 years. Since major revisions affect a large part of the time series and sometimes even the complete time series, it is necessary to backcast time series, otherwise major revisions would produce breaks and inconsistencies in them.

• Unplanned revisions: Unplanned or unscheduled revisions are those that are not foreseen (as opposed to planned revisions), because they are a result of unforeseeable events and therefore it is usually not possible to pre-announced them in advance. As unscheduled revisions can undermine confidence in the quality of official statistics, HCSO is committed to avoiding as much as possible unscheduled revisions and to limit them to the case of important errors (whose correction results in significant improvement regarding data quality). Unscheduled revisions are communicated to the users in a transparent manner.

HCSO makes its general and domain specific revision policies publicly available on its official website. HCSO applies the general policy’s principles to all of its statistics (including the STS data transmitted to the Eurostat). Although subject matter statistics may have specificities regarding their revision practices, they have to be fully compliant with the general principles.

HCSO notifies users about forthcoming revisions in time and indicates their date and time in the revision calendar .

Monthly data are revised after the end of year on the basis of an annual survey of building permits, completed constructions and cessations by settlements. This is the source of revisions after the end of year. First release is preliminary. In publications, data of the base period (i.e. the same period of the previous year) are final.

Generally there is no need to make revisions, however in 2016 an unplanned revision was necessary. From January 2016 on builders of homes for own use do not need to apply for a building permit, instead they can make a simple declaration of their building plans. The regulation according to this declaration and also the tasks of building authorities in connection with supervising building projects started with a simple declaration have changed several times throughout the year. In the first 7 months a few building authorities failed to report simple declarations and this made necessary a revision. In terms of total built residential area the revision rate is 4,4% for the total of 2016. The highest revision has been made in March and April (22 and 14% respectively). From May to July the revision rate of monthly data is below 10%. In January and February it was less than 2%. Apart from 2016 year, revision and therefore MAR and MR was equal to 0.

The revised final data cover all planned constructions either started by a building permit or a simple declaration.

Building authorities at Government offices are responding. Those which delay are checked and interviewed.

Monthly

From 2013 on data are transmitted via electronic data collection system (Elektra) of the HCSO. The questionnaire collects the total number of buildings by types, the number of dwellings and the volume of useful floor area in square meters. The required breakdown is: one-dwelling buildings, two-dwelling buildings, three or more dwelling buildings, community buildings, holiday houses, office buildings, commercial buildings, lodging and catering buildings, educational and health care buildings, industrial buildings, agricultural buildings, transport and telecommunication buildings, other non-residential buildings. All data are aggregated by settlement or by district in Budapest so one settlement/district sends one questionnaire per month.

Building authorities which do not issue any permits along the whole period are also responding the questionnaire so that non-response can be excluded. Elektra system has several built-in checks for arriving data.

Settlement level results are aggregated to different levels.

Seasonal Adjustment

At the Hungarian Central Statistical Office the TRAMO/SEATS method with JDemetra+ is used for seasonal adjustment in accordance with the ESS guidelines on seasonal adjustment. Model revision as default takes place yearly, and the results of the new model are published with the first data of the new year. During this step a fully automated model identification is made by TRAMO/SEATS, but the final decision is based on subject-matter domain information. During the year, with each new data the coefficients of the model are re-estimated, and revision of the seasonally adjusted data is made from the beginning of the time series. No forecast is made in any step of the process.

Calendar adjustment

For the calendar adjustment country specific calendar is used, which includes all the national holidays since 1990. Working day regressor is used for quarterly time series, and for monthly time series shorter than 15 years. For monthly time series which are at least 15 years long trading day regressors are used. The leap year effect is tested and used if it is significant.

Standard Easter effect is also used in the models if it has a significant effect and/or economic reason is available.

Outlier detection

Additive (AO), level shift (LS) and temporary change (TC) outliers are used during the seasonal adjustment process. In the yearly model revision the results of the automatic outlier detection and the economic reasons are checked. At the end of the process outliers used in the previous year are changed (especially those of which were long time ago) if it is strongly reasonable.

During the year last outliers refresh strategy of the JDemetra+ is used, it means that the outliers in the last year of the sample are re-identified.

More general information can be found in the following link: About seasonal adjustment

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