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) : Annex I - Services, Annex II - Industry, Annex III - Trade and Annex IV- Constructions and by datasets. Each annex contains several datasets as indicated in the SBS Regulation.

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:

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

Annual enterprise statistics: Characteristics collected are published by country and detailed on NACE Rev 2 and NACE Rev 1.1 class level (4-digits). Some classes or groups in 'services' section have been aggregated. Annual enterprise statistics broken down by size classes: Characteristics are published by country and detailed down to NACE Rev 2 and NACE Rev 1.1 group level (3-digits) and employment size class. For trade (NACE Rev 2 and NACE Rev 1.1 Section G) a supplementary breakdown by turnover size class is available. Annual regional statistics: Four characteristics are published by NUTS-2 country region and detailed on NACE Rev 2 and NACE Rev 1.1 division level (2-digits) (but to group level (3-digits) for the trade section). More information on the contents of different tables: the detail level and breakdowns required starting with the reference year 2008 is defined in Commission Regulation N° 251/2009. For previous reference years it is included in Commission Regulations (EC) N° 2701/98 and amended by Commission Regulation N°1614/2002 and Commission Regulation N°1669/2003.

Several important derived indicators are generated in the form of ratios of certain monetary characteristics or per head values. A list with the available derived indicators is available below in the Annex.