Business surveys

The business surveys monitor developments in business activity and the factors affecting it in enterprises in the construction, industry, retail trade, and services sectors. The collected data enable assessment of the economic situation by European Union member state, in the EU as a whole, and in the euro area.

A confidence indicator is compiled for each sector. Business confidence indicators are components of the European Commission's Economic Sentiment Indicator (ESI).

Probability survey

The survey is conducted in all EU member states. Data are collected from enterprises in the construction, industry, retail trade, and services sectors. The main indicators include developments in business activity and the factors influencing these developments, as well as changes in employment, business expectations, and economic uncertainty at both national and European Union level.

Estonian Classification of Economic Activities (EMTAK 2008) based on NACE Rev. 2

The survey covers enterprises in the following economic activities:

• Manufacturing (EMTAK C);
• Construction (EMTAK F);
• Wholesale and retail trade and repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles (EMTAK G45);
• Retail trade, except of motor vehicles and motorcycles (EMTAK G47);
• Transportation and storage (EMTAK H);
• Accommodation and food service activities (EMTAK I);
• Information and communication (EMTAK J);
• Financial and insurance activities (EMTAK K);
• Real estate activities (EMTAK L);
• Professional, scientific, and technical activities (EMTAK M);
• Administrative and support service activities (EMTAK N);
• Arts, entertainment, and recreation (EMTAK R);
• Other service activities (EMTAK S).

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

Construction confidence indicator – the arithmetic mean of the balances (in percentage points) for current order books and employment expectations

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

Enterprise – an enterprise consists of one or more companies (public limited company, private limited company, limited partnership, general partnership, commercial association) or branches of foreign companies or sole proprietors. Short-term statistics cover only branches of foreign companies with 20 or more persons employed and sole proprietors. The statistical unit is an enterprise.

Industrial confidence indicator – the arithmetic mean of the balances (in percentage points) for production expectations, order books, and stocks of finished products (the latter with an inverted sign)

Retail trade confidence indicator – the arithmetic mean of the balances (in percentage points) for the present and future business situation (sales) and stocks (the latter with an inverted sign)

Services confidence indicator – the arithmetic mean of the balances (in percentage points) for sales of services, demand, and expected demand

Examples of the calculation of the construction, retail trade, services, and industrial confidence indicators

Enterprise

The population consists of enterprises whose principal activity falls within one of the following sectors: manufacturing; construction; wholesale and retail trade and repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles; retail trade; transportation and storage; accommodation and food service activities; information and communication; financial and insurance activities; real estate activities; professional, scientific, and technical activities; administrative and support service activities; arts, entertainment, and recreation; and other service activities.

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 tables under the subject area Multidomain statistics / Business and consumer tendency surveys:

BAR02: Construction survey (monthly);

BAR03: Industry survey (monthly).
The indicators "Factors currently limiting production", "Current production capacity", "Orders over the last 3 months", "Current level of capacity utilization", "Competitive position on foreign markets inside the EU over the last 3 months", and "Competitive position on foreign markets outside the EU over the last 3 months" are not published monthly, but quarterly (in January, April, July, and October);

BAR04: Retail trade survey (monthly);

BAR05: Services survey (monthly).
The indicator "Factors currently limiting business" is 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.

Aggregated data are transmitted to the European Commission monthly, five 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; banks use them to assess enterprises' willingness to borrow and invest; and enterprises use the data 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 business surveys 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 active enterprises drawn from the business register for statistical purposes.

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.

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 business surveys since May 2026. Previously, the survey was carried out by the Estonian Institute of Economic Research.

Statistics Estonia started publishing data from the business surveys 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 business surveys component accounts for 144,244.84 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

The survey is based on a probability samples. The samples for the business surveys are selected from the business register for statistical purposes.

The sampling method is stratified simple random sampling by economic activity and number of persons employed.

There are four business surveys: for enterprises in the construction, industry, retail trade, and services sectors.

For the construction survey, a random sample is drawn from economically active enterprises whose principal economic activity, according to the 2008 version of the EMTAK classification, falls under Section F "Construction" and whose number of persons employed was at least 10. The sample size is 165 enterprises.

For the retail trade survey, a random sample is drawn from economically active enterprises whose principal activity, according to EMTAK 2008, falls under Divisions G45 "Wholesale and retail trade and repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles" and G47 "Retail trade", and whose number of persons employed was at least 10. The sample size is 175 enterprises.

For the services survey, a random sample is drawn from economically active enterprises whose principal activity, according to EMTAK 2008, falls under Sections H "Transportation and storage", I "Accommodation and food service activities", J "Information and communication", K "Financial and insurance activities", L "Real estate activities", M "Professional, scientific, and technical activities", N "Administrative and support service activities", R "Arts, entertainment, and recreation", and S "Other service activities", and whose number of persons employed was at least 5. The sample size is 720 enterprises.

For the manufacturing industry survey, a random sample is drawn from economically active enterprises whose principal activity, according to EMTAK 2008, falls under Section C "Manufacturing", and whose number of persons employed was at least 10. The sample size is 390 enterprises.

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 enterprises in the sample introducing the purpose of the survey and indicating when the online questionnaire will be available for completion.

Data collection and questionnaire submission are managed and monitored through the LimeSurvey application. The questionnaires are 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 section Questionnaires.
Data are collected for this statistical process using the monthly questionnaires 1510 "Construction survey", 1511 "Retail trade survey", 1512 "Services survey", 1513 "Industry 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.

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.

In the case of missing data, values are imputed (replaced) on the basis of previous data according to predefined rules. Data values for a single enterprise are imputed for up to three consecutive months.

In business surveys, weights are calculated for statistical units to expand sample survey data to the population.

Variables that were not collected but are necessary for producing the output are calculated. New variables are calculated by applying arithmetic conversions to existing variables.

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

The imputation rate shows the share of imputed values among all values.

At the time of compiling the report, the imputation rate cannot be assessed, as no imputation is carried out during the initial collection and publication of the data (there are no previous data on which to base imputation).

Not applied

Not applied

Until April 2026, the business surveys were conducted by the Estonian Institute of Economic Research.