Consumer survey

The consumer survey measures consumer confidence. The survey reflects Estonian residents' assessments of the country's economic situation, price developments, unemployment, purchases of durable goods, savings, and intentions with regard to major purchases.

The consumer confidence indicator is a component of the European Commission's Economic Sentiment Indicator (ESI).

The survey is conducted in all EU member states. Data are collected from permanent residents of Estonia aged 18 years and over. The main indicators are the general economic situation, price developments, unemployment, purchases of durable goods, savings, the household's financial situation, and purchase of a house or apartment or home improvement/renovation.

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Consumer confidence indicator – the arithmetic mean of the balances (in percentage points) for the financial situation of households over the past and next 12 months, the expected general economic situation over the next 12 months, and intentions to make major purchases over the next 12 months. Example of the calculation of the consumer confidence indicator.

Balances – the difference between the shares of positive and negative response options, measured in percentage points of total responses

Economic Sentiment Indicator (ESI) – a composite indicator compiled by the European Commission that measures businesses' and consumer's assessments of the economic situation in five sectors (construction, retail trade, services, industry, and consumers), with the aim of reflecting the general economic situation and forecasting economic growth

Household – a group of people who live in a common dwelling (at the same address), share joint financial and/or food resources, and whose members consider themselves to belong to the same household. A household may also consist of one member only.

Person;

housahold

The population consists of permanent residents of Estonia aged 18 years and over.

Estonia as a whole

May 2026–…

Data are published for the current month at the end of each month.

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Official Statistics Act;

The Joint Harmonised EU Programme of Business and Consumer Surveys, initiated by the Commission Decision of 15 November 1961; last approved through Commission Decision C(97) 2241 of 15 July 1997 (https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/bcs/legis/bcs-decision-c(1997)2241_en.pdf); implementation updates presented in Commission Communications COM(2000) 770 of 29 November 2000, COM(2006) 379 of 12 July 2006, SEC(2012) 227 of 4 April 2012, and C(2016) 6634 of 20 October 2016.

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News releases are published as needed and are available on Statistics Estonia's website in the News section.

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Data are published in the statistical database in the following table under the subject area Multidomain statistics / Business and consumer tendency surveys:

BAR01: Consumer survey (monthly).
The indicators "Purchase or build a home over the next 12 months" and "Home improvements over the next 12 months" are not published monthly, but quarterly (in January, April, July, and October).

Not applicable, as Statistics Estonia started publishing these data in May 2026.

The dissemination of data collected for the purpose of producing official statistics is guided by the requirements provided for in § 33, § 34, § 35, § 36, § 38 of the Official Statistics Act.

Access to microdata and anonymisation of microdata are regulated by Statistics Estonia’s procedure for dissemination of confidential data for scientific purposes.

Pseudonymised microdata are transmitted to the European Commission monthly via the EDAMIS data transmission system.

Pseudonymised microdata and aggregated data are transmitted to the European Commission monthly, seven working days before the end of the reference month. Data are transmitted via the EDAMIS data transmission system.

The survey results are also available in the database of the European Commission's Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN) and in the Eurostat database.

Not applicable, as Statistics Estonia started publishing these data, and the related metadata, in May 2026.

European Commission methodology for business and consumer surveys

This statistical activity is guided by the European Statistics Code of Practice – revised edition, 2017.

This is a survey of persons based on a probability sample. The survey population consists of permanent residents of Estonia aged 18 years and over living in private households (as at the reference year according to the statistical population register). Persons living in institutional households are not included in the population. The sample is selected randomly from the statistical population register. The population includes approximately 1.1 million persons aged 18 years and older. The sample size is 4,000 persons. The sampling method is stratified simple random sampling by sex and age group.

Data on the person’s highest level of education attained (according to the national classification of education, RÜHL 2011) are obtained from Statistics Estonia’s population database, which also includes education data from several national registers.

Month

The survey data are collected using a web questionnaire, which can be completed from the first working day of the month through the 14th, inclusive.
Before the survey begins, an email is sent to all persons in the sample introducing the purpose of the survey and indicating when the online questionnaire will be available for completion. The notification email is sent to the sampled person’s email address recorded in the Population Register.

Data collection and questionnaire submission are managed and monitored through the LimeSurvey application. The questionnaire is designed to be completed independently by the respondent in an online environment. The questionnaires and information about data submission are available on the website of Statistics Estonia in the Questionnaires section.
Data are collected for this statistical process using the monthly questionnaire Questionnaires" target="_blank">1514 "Consumer survey".
The questionnaire can be completed in Estonian, Russian, or English.
If the data submitter has questions arising during the completion of the questionnaire, they can contact customer support. Therefore, training is provided to customer support and the data collection team before the start of the survey, where the content of the survey is discussed and the questionnaire is reviewed together.
Participation in the survey is voluntary, and responses are based on civic duty.

Arithmetic and qualitative checks are used in the validation process. Before data dissemination, the internal coherence of the data is checked.

The logical coherence of input data is checked according to the quality requirements: internal coherence, population coverage, and the response rate are checked.

The data are also validated according to the European Commission’s requirements; logical checks are carried out when the data are transmitted via EDAMIS.

Individual weights are calculated and used to produce population estimates. Weights are calculated in three stages:

• calculation of design weights, which indicate how many population units each person in the sample represents;
• non-response adjustment, in which the design weight is divided by the response probability;
• calibration, which adjusts the non-response-adjusted weights so that the sum of the weights reflects the actual population totals by sex and age distribution.

Variables that were not collected but are necessary for producing the output are calculated or obtained from registers.

Microdata are aggregated to the level necessary for analysis. The collected data are converted into statistical output.

Data values are not imputated.

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