Instituto Nacional de Estatística / Statistics Portugal

Business Statistics Unit in Economics Statistics Department

Av. António José de Almeida 1000-043 Lisboa

Quarterly business demography (QBD) comprises data on registrations and bankruptcies: Registrations - The number of entered legal units in the registration register at any time during the reference quarter Q, according to the respective administrative or legal procedure. Registrations is an early indicator to measure business intentions. This statistics are based on existing administrative data from the Directorate-General Justice Policy (DGPJ) notary offices. Bankruptcies - The number of legal units that have started the procedure of being declared bankrupt, by issuing a court declaration, at any time during the reference quarter Q (which is often provisional and does not always mean cessation of an activity). Bankruptcies is an early indicator to measure situation in business environment. This statistics are based on existing administrative data from the courts.

NACE Rev.2

Data covers companies classified on NACE Rev. 2 sections B to S (except section O and activities from S94 division).

Registration - The number of entered legal units in the registration register at any time during the reference quarter, according to the respective administrative or legal procedure. It refers to the moment of the legal creation of the unit, reflects the unit creation regardless of the moment when the activity starts. The methodology applied does not differs from the common methodology on the EBS regulation. Bankruptcy - To the 4th quarter of 2021, the data on Bankruptcies sent by Statistics Portugal, corresponded to the number of dissolutions due to bankruptcy, based on information from the Directorate-General for Justice Policy (DGPJ) notary offices. This information was considered a "proxy" to Bankruptcy procedures. It refered to the legal dissolution of the unit and reflected the moment of legal dissolution of the company regardless of the moment of the end of the activity. From May 2022, due to the collaboration between Statistics Portugal and DGPJ, Statistics Portugal will be able to submit data on bankruptcies as defined on the EBS regulation. This new information corresponds to the number of legal units that have initiated the bankruptcy process in the reference quarter, by issuing a court declaration, regardless of whether this has given rise to a dissolution by bankruptcy.

Legal unit

Sole proprietors are not included in the statistics on registrations and bankruptcy declarations.

The Quarterly business demography statistics comprise all territory of Portugal.

2015-Q1 to 2023-Q4

Not applicable

The unit of measure is "pure number" of registrations and declarations of bankruptcies.

Registrations and declarations of bankruptcies refer to one quarter.

In October 2022, Statistics Portugal sent monthly data, from January 2015 to June 2022, on registrations and bankruptcies.

Regarding registrations, since then, data have been sent montlhy. For bankruptcies, for now, Statistics Portugal is sending the monthly data on a quarterly basis, simultaneously with the quarterly data.

EBS Regulation N° 2019/2152, Table 1 of the Commission implementing regulation N° 2020/1197.

Data (pure numbers) are sent to Eurostat.

Quarterly registrations and declarations of bankruptcies data is not under confidenciality policy.

Not applicable

Registrations - Monthly releases.

Bankruptcies - Quarterly releases.

Access to the release calendar is granted through the following link.

Statistics Portugal provides information on QBD, which is not available in the published on-line databases, to everyone with a specific request.

Currently nacional releases are in a monthly basis (for Registrations), and in a quarterly basis (for Bankruptcies).

The same to Eurostat.

Not applicable

Monthly registrations data is available on Monthly Statistical Bulletin, which is released every month.

Link to December 2023 publication: https://www.ine.pt/xportal/xmain?xpid=INE&xpgid=ine_publicacoes&PUBLICACOESpub_boui=653787800&PUBLICACOESmodo=2

Monthly, 30 days after de reference period. (for Registrations)

Quarterly, 40 days after de reference period. (for Bankruptcies)

Not applicable

QBD data (absolute values) are transmitted to Eurostat within 40 days after the reference period. The transmission is done by eDAMIS using the SDMX format.

MBD data (absolute values) are transmitted to Eurostat within 40 days after the reference period (for Registrations), and quarterly, within 40 days after the reference period (for Bankruptcies). The transmission is done by eDAMIS using the SDMX format.

Metadata is available on Metadata System - http://smi.ine.pt/?LANG=EN

Not applicable

Statistics Portugal (INE) is the main authority for the production and dissemination of official statistics in Portugal and its work is steered by the underlying principles of its mission, vision and values, which are known to the public and are quality-oriented. What concerns the legal framework quality in statistics is defined by the Portuguese Statistical System Law, article 7 (Lei nº 22/2008, artigo 7º) and the Regulation (EC) nº 223/2009,(amended by the European Regulation 2015/759), at national and European levels respectively.

INE is part of the European Statistical System (ESS) and has adopted the European Statistics Code of Practice – the Code – as firm guidance for the success of its mission. Since its last revision (november 2017), the Code comprises the Quality Declaration of the European Statistical System, 16 Principles and 84 indicators of best practices and standards for each of the Principles, defining the European benchmarks for the statistical activity, covering the institutional environment, statistical processes and statistical outputs.

Please consult the Statistics Portugal website for more information.

Not applicable

QBD data published at national level is different from the data sent to Eurostat. We provide information at geographic level and a more detail in what concerns to economic activity. However the data for the same variables are the same. 

Statistics Portugal keeps track of the number of hits to on-line QBD data. During 2023 there were 7213 hits to the indicators.

The degree of completeness of the QBD data is 100%. All QBD data has been sent on time.

Since we use administrative sources we consider that we may have a (very) small bias due to some delays in the registration of bankruptcy data by the courts.

As quarterly business demography indicators are "event based" statistics based on complete enumeration, sampling error is not applicable.

As for other administrative event based data, the registration delays might be a source of errors, in particular for declarations of bankruptcies. For example, there might be a delay longer than 40 days for registering a declaration of bankruptcy for the reference quarter ("data collection and access error").For now, we still have no way of accounting for possible delays in filing bankruptcy by the courts. If from now on we record a significant amount of these delays, we will assess the need to resend the information.

Q+40 days

All data was sent within the regulation deadline.

Sole proprietors are not included in the statistics on registrations and declarations of bankruptcies.

Registrations series is comparable over time. Regarding Bankruptcies, within the scope of the EBS regulation the information sent up to the 4th quarter of 2021, by Statistics Portugal, corresponded to the number of dissolutions due to bankruptcy, based on information from the Directorate-General for Justice Policy (DGPJ) notary offices, and always referring to the fact that this information is a “proxy”.From May 2022, due to the collaboration between Statistics Portugal and DGPJ, and after analysing the data coming from the courts, Statistics Portugal made the variable “Bankruptcy” available on a quarterly basis, based on information from the DGPJ courts and not using, to date, information from notary offices. This new information corresponds to the number of legal units that have initiated the bankruptcy process, by issuing a court declaration, regardless of whether this has given rise to a dissolution by bankruptcy.Therefore, in May 2022, we sent not only data from the 1st quarter of 2022, but also all data from the 1st quarter of 2015 to the 4th quarter of 2021, so that the indices for publication by Eurostat could be calculated.If Eurostat decides to use the data from 2015-Q1 to 2021-Q4 now submitted, there will be no break in bankruptcies series. Otherwise there will be a break in the series from 2022-Q1.

Quarterly business demography is different from annual statistics on births and deaths of enterprises. Registrations cannot be directly compared with the birth of an enterprise. Registrations of businesses are part of administrative procedures, while annual data on enterprise births are based on the start-up of business activity in terms of having turnover, employment or investment. The registration of a legal unit can be considered as a declaration of intent but does not necessarily mean it follows business activity in line with annual business demography concept. Registration data are not based on the enterprise demography characteristics 'date of commencement of activities' but rather on the 'date of registration' that is not necessarily equal to 'date of commencement of activities'. Due to the methodological differences, there is no direct comparability to annual business demography statistics on births of enterprises. Quarterly bankruptcies are frequently different from annual business demography statistics on deaths of enterprises, because they cover deaths of enterprises due to bankruptcies as well as other enterprises which ended their activity for other reasons. Bankruptcies that were filed do not necessarily mean closing of the business. Even if an enterprise has declared for bankruptcy, it does not always mean that it ceases all activity when it enters into bankruptcy procedure. In order to be recorded as enterprise death in annual business demography typically all production factors have been dissolved / terminated. To conclude, the scope and contents of annual business demography statistics on deaths of enterprises differ considerably from quarterly data on bankruptcies, the levels of these two statistics may therefore vary considerably. In general, bankruptcies represent only a fraction of all enterprise deaths. They cannot be directly compared with annual business demography data on deaths of enterprises.

The aggregates are always consistent with their main sub-aggregates.

As QBD data are based on administrative sources, there is normally no extra burden to businesses. The data are made available by the Directorate-General for Justice Policy (DGPJ) to Statistics Portugal, which in turn limits them to the scope of the regulation and sends it in SDMX format.

For the time being, Statistics Portugal has not considered it necessary to develop a data review policy on companies registrations and bankruptcies.

Not applicable

Registrations data is based on information from the Directorate-General for Justice Policy (DGPJ) notary offices. Regarding the “Bankruptcy” variable, the information sent up to the 4th quarter of 2021, by Statistics Portugal, corresponded to the number of dissolutions due to bankruptcy, based on information from the Directorate-General for Justice Policy (DGPJ) notary offices, and always referring to the fact that this information is a “proxy” From May 2022, due to the collaboration between Statistics Portugal and DGPJ, and after analysing the data coming from the courts, Statistics Portugal made the variable “Bankruptcy” available on a quarterly basis, based on information from the DGPJ courts and not using, to date, information from notary offices. This new information corresponds to the number of legal units that have initiated the bankruptcy process, by issuing a court declaration, regardless of whether this has given rise to a dissolution by bankruptcy. Therefore, in May 2022, we sent not only data from the 1st quarter of 2022, but also all data from the 1st quarter of 2015 to the 4th quarter of 2021, so that the indices for publication by Eurostat could be calculated.

The data extraction takes place 35 days after the reference period, once a quarter.

Statistics Portugal has access to an extraction from a data base.

The calculations of the data to be sent to Eurostat are carried out and confirmed.

Statistics Portugal restricts the data to the scope of the regulation and makes the calculations in the requested aggregates.

Statistics Portugal does not publish adjusted data.

No comments.