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).

Probability survey

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.

Not applied

Not applicable

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.

Not applicable

Balance – percentage points

Month

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.

None

The dissemination of data collected for the purpose of producing official statistics is guided by the requirements provided for in § 32, § 34, § 35 and § 38 of the Official Statistics Act.

On European level, Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics (recital 24 and Article 20(4)) of 11 March 2009 (OJ L 87, p. 164), stipulates the need to establish common principles and guidelines ensuring the confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those confidential data with due account for technical developments and the requirements of users in a democratic society.

The dissemination of data collected for the production of official statistics is based on the requirements laid down in §§ 34 and 35 of the Official Statistics Act.

The principles for treatment of confidential data can be found here: Data protection (Privacy policy).

Notifications about the dissemination of statistics are published in the release calendar, which is available on Statistics Estonia's website. Every year on 1 October, the release times of the statistical database, news releases, main indicators by IMF SDDS and publications for the following year are announced in the release calendar (in the case of publications – the release month).

The release calendar is available to consumers on the website Calendar.

All users have been granted equal access to official statistics: dissemination dates of official statistics are announced in advance and no user category (incl. Eurostat, state authorities and media) is provided access to official statistics before other users. Official statistics are first published in the statistical database. If there is also a news release, it is published simultaneously with data in the statistical database. Official statistics are available on the website at 8:00 a.m. on the date announced in the release calendar.

Month

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

Not published

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.

To assure the quality of processes and products, Statistics Estonia applies the European Statistics Code of Practice and the Quality Assurance Framework of the European Statistical System (ESS QAF). Statistics Estonia is also guided by the EFQM Excellence Model and the requirements in section 7 “Principles and quality criteria of producing official statistics” of the Official Statistics Act.

Statistics Estonia performs all statistical activities according to an international model (Generic Statistical Business Process Model – GSBPM). According to the GSBPM, the final phase of statistical activities is overall evaluation using information gathered in each phase or sub-process; this information can take many forms, including feedback from users, process metadata, system metrics and suggestions from employees. This information is used to prepare the evaluation report which outlines all the quality problems related to the specific statistical activity and serves as input for improvement actions.

The survey is primarily commissioned by the European Commission and conducted internationally.

Government institutions use the survey results to make fiscal and tax policy decisions and assess the impact of social policy and benefits. Banks assess consumers' willingness to borrow and their saving and investment behaviour. Enterprises use the data to forecast demand and to plan sales, pricing, and marketing strategies. The results are also used in economic analyses and forecasts, as well as in research.

Since 1996, Statistics Estonia has conducted reputation and user satisfaction surveys. Surveys conducted at least once a year target both the existing and potential consumers of statistics. All results are available on Statistics Estonia's website in the section User surveys. The survey referred to does not concern a specific statistical activity but is a general satisfaction survey.

User satisfaction with the consumer survey cannot yet be assessed, as Statistics Estonia has been conducting this survey since May 2026.

The survey is carried out in all European Union member states under the Joint Harmonised EU Programme of Business and Consumer Surveys. A common methodology is used to ensure the comparability of the results.

All required data have been collected, calculated, and transmitted to the European Commission. Not all data are published in the database of Statistics Estonia, partly due to confidentiality measures.

All required indicators have been collected and calculated (completeness 100%).

The type of survey and the data collection methods ensure sufficient accuracy.

Not applied

Not applied

Efforts are made to reduce non-sampling error through continuous improvement of the methodology and the survey process.

The survey frame is a list of permanent residents of Estonia aged 18 years and over, drawn from the statistical population register.

Since the frame is based on register data, any under- or over-coverage of the survey is minimal.

There is no information on major measurement errors.

An email is sent to all persons in the sample, introducing the purpose of the survey and indicating when the questionnaire will be available for online completion. If a respondent does not complete the questionnaire, up to four reminder letters are sent. Non-response is taken into account in the weighting process. A regression model is used to estimate response probabilities; the design weights are divided by the response probabilities to obtain a non-response-adjusted weight for each respondent. The variables used in the model are sex, age group, place of residence (urban/rural settlement and 15 counties plus Tallinn), and level of education (below upper secondary / upper secondary / tertiary education).

Weighting is carried out according to the established methodology. Weighting is performed monthly.

Not applicable

The data are published in Statistics Estonia's database before the end of each reference month. Publication dates are announced in Statistics Estonia's release calendar on 1 October of the preceding year.

The data are published once.

The data are published once.

Cannot yet be assessed, as these data have been published by Statistics Estonia only since May 2026.

Cannot yet be assessed, as these data have been published by Statistics Estonia only since May 2026.

The data are comparable with data from other European Union countries.

Statistics Estonia has been conducting the consumer survey since May 2026. Previously, the survey was carried out by the Estonian Institute of Economic Research.

Statistics Estonia started publishing data from the consumer survey in May 2026.

There are no connections with other sectors.

Not applicable

Not applicable as not directly usable in national accounts.

The outputs of the statistical process are coherent. The internal consistency of the data is ensured by the use of a common methodology for data collection and data aggregation.

The total cost of Statistics Estonia's application submitted in response to the European Commission's call for proposals under the Business and Consumer Surveys Programme for the period from 1 May 2026 to 30 April 2027 is 340,460.88 euros. Of this, the consumet survey component accounts for 196,216.04 euros.

The data revision policy and notification of corrections are described on Statistics Estonia's website in the section Principles of dissemination of official statistics.

The published data may be revised if the methodology is modified, errors are discovered, new or better data become available.

There are no regular revisions.

Not applied

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.

Not applied

Not applied

Until April 2026, the consumer survey was conducted by the Estonian Institute of Economic Research.

In order to assess whether and how the data collection method affects the results, a telephone survey is conducted in parallel with the online survey from May to July 2026. Before the start of the survey, all persons selected for the telephone survey are sent an email introducing the purpose of the survey and indicating the time period during which the interviewer will contact them. The persons selected for the online survey and the telephone survey do not overlap. To ensure the best possible service, telephone interviews are recorded with the respondent's consent. Interviews are conducted by Statistics Estonia's telephone interviewers, who have received relevant training.