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 are transmitted annually by the EU Member States on the basis of a legal obligation from 1995 onwards.

SBS covers all activities of the business economy with the exception of agricultural activities and personal services and the data are provided by all EU Member States, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland, some candidate and potential candidate countries. The data are collected by domain of activity (annex) :

The majority of the data is collected by National Statistical Institutes (NSIs) by means of statistical surveys, business registers or from various administrative sources. Regulatory or controlling national offices for financial institutions or central banks often provide the information required for the financial sector (NACE Rev 2 Section K / NACE Rev 1.1 Section J).

Member States apply various statistical methods, according to the data source, such as grossing up, model based estimation or different forms of imputation, to ensure the quality of SBSs produced.

Main characteristics (variables) of the SBS data category:

All SBS characteristics are published on Eurostat’s website by tables and an example of the existent tables is presented below: