Historique
At the beginning of the 1970s, Eurostat set up the NUTS classification as a single, coherent system for dividing up the EU's territory to produce regional statistics. For around 30 years, Eurostat and EU countries managed implementing and updating the NUTS classification through a series of informal agreements.
To give NUTS a legal status, work on EU regulation 1059/2003, started in spring 2000. It was adopted in May 2003 and entered into force in July 2003.
The regulation states that the classification should stay stable for at least 3 years. Stability ensures that data refers to the same regional unit for a certain time. This is crucial for statistics, in particular for time series.
However, sometimes national interests require changing a country’s regional structure. When this happens, the country concerned informs the European Commission about the changes. The Commission then amends the classification at the end of the period of stability based on the rules of the NUTS Regulation.
The NUTS classification has undergone several amendments over the years:
| Amendment type | Legislation | Enter into force | NUTS version | Applicable for data transmission |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base act | EU regulation 1059/2003 | 11 July 2003 | NUTS 2003 | 2003-2007 |
| Enlargement | EU regulation 1888/2005 | 26 November 2005 | NUTS 2003 | 2003-2007 |
| Enlargement | EU regulation 176/2008 | 6 March 2008 | NUTS 2003 | 2003-2007 |
| Regular | EU regulation 105/2007 | 2 March 2007 | NUTS 2006 | 2008-2011 |
| Regular | EU regulation 31/2011 | 7 February 2007 | NUTS 2010 | 2012-2014 |
| Enlargement | EU regulation 517/2013 | 1 July 2013 | NUTS 2010 | 2012-2014 |
| Regular | EU regulation 1319/2013 | 7 January 2013 | NUTS 2013 | 2015-2017 |
| Extraordinary | EU regulation 868/2014 | 2 September 2014 | NUTS 2013 | 2015-2017 |
| Regular | EU regulation 2016/2066 | 19 December 2016 | NUTS 2016 | 2018-2020 |
| Regular | EU regulation 2019/1755 | 13 November 2019 | NUTS 2021 | 2021-2023 |
| Regular | EU regulation 2023/674 | 13 April 2023 | NUTS 2024 | 2024- |
View the lists of changes between the various NUTS versions below:
- NUTS 2021 - NUTS 2024
- NUTS 2016 - NUTS 2021
- NUTS 2013 - NUTS 2016
- NUTS 2010 - NUTS 2013
- NUTS 2006 - NUTS 2010
- NUTS 2003 - NUTS 2006
- NUTS 1999 - NUTS 2003
- NUTS 1995 - NUTS 1999
- NUTS 1981 - NUTS 1999
When the classification is amended, the country concerned has to replace historical data by time series based on the new regional breakdown within 2 years. The decision on the statistics concerned and on the lengths of the time series for each domain is subject to a feasibility evaluation.
Maps showing the changes between the NUTS 2013 and NUTS 2016 versions and the NUTS 2016 and NUTS 2021 versions can be found on the maps page.
‘Linked data’ is a method of publishing structured data, including historical time series, so that it can be interlinked and become more useful through semantic queries. The Sparql endpoint can be used to perform queries on the NUTS dataset.