Structural Business Statistics Survey

How many jobs do businesses create in Austria? What ist their gross operating surplus? In which sectors are investments particularly high?

These questions are answered with the aid of structural business statistics (SBS). These statistics capture the structure, performance, employment and investments of Austrian enterprises. Due to harmonized European requirements structural business data are internationally comparable and they provide essential information to calculate economic indicators, e.g. the gross domestic product (GDP).

IMPORTANT! Last reference year 2021 an amended legal basis entered into force that led to extensive changes for the structural business statistics survey and the enterprises, respectively. The national concept was revised, aligned and simplified with the goal to decrease the burden on respondents. Please find the access to the reporting tools and comprehensive information about the changes as well as detailed instructions to the new reporting tool “Balance of accounts” below.

Following regulations are relevant for structural business statistics:

The treatment and management of personal data of enterprises strictly abide by the Austrian regulations of data privacy protection and the guidelines by Statistics Austria. The information on data protection informs you about the processing of personal and enterprise-related data in the course of the SBS survey. The publication of results abides confidentiality rules, drawing conclusions on information of single enterprises is not possible (please find further information on the German website).

The obligation to report affects all enterprises (legal units), whose main economic activities are covered by sections B to J, L to N, P to R as well as divisions K66, S95 and S96 according to the classification of economic activities (ÖNACE 2008) or generate profits or other economic advantages by carrying out their activities regularly and independently and exceed legally defined thresholds.

The obligation to report is determined for each enterprise by the annual average number of persons employed and/or the turnover of the respective reference year. The thresholds for the individual economic industries can be downloaded below.

The structural business statistics survey is conducted annually. The reference period is the business year of an enterprise, which was recently concluded and which covers most months of the reference period.

The request to report for reference year 2022 are distributed to the enterprises in August 2023.

The legal deadline to report is on 30 September 2023. 

If it is not possible to meet the closing date, Statistics Austria can prolong the reporting period to support enterprises fulfilling their obligation to report.

In the case of lacking technical requirements to report electronically the enterprise has to respond to the reporting request in writing within two weeks. Then, Statistics Austria sends paper forms to the respondent.

Detailed explanations to all variables in the survey and general information about structural business statistics are available on the German website.

The most frequent questions are assembled in the FAQ-document.

Questionnaire Templates

Please consider the templates below for further information on the variables and questionnaires of the structural business statistics survey. 

The questionnaires on special variables (environmental protection expenditures and breakdown of revenue by ÖCPA codes) are only available on the German website.

Following electronic reporting tools are available for the structural business statistics survey:

  • eQuest: The online questionnaire is available for all enterprises that do not report with the new reporting tool “Balance of accounts”. Special features (environmental protection expenditures and the breakdown of revenue by ÖCPA codes) can only be reported with eQuest.
  • Balance of accounts: If the technichal requirements are not given in the applied accounting software to transfer the XML file directly, an import interface is accessible in the portal of Statistics Austria to upload the generated XML File.

Also, enterprises can report via the Business service portal after a successful registration.

For further information and a successful implementation of the Balance of accounts please download the variable list with English translations and the templates of the XML- und XSD files.

Further Remarks:

  • In order to use the function “Forgot Password” in the portal of Statistics Austria, an e-mail address has to be stored using the application “e-mail verification”.
  • If you are a third party declarant (tax consultant, auditor or other business representative) and aim to fulfil the reporting obligations for your clients but are not registered for all of them, please request your registration online.

Request

Description

Login details

Please choose this form if you need login details for your enterprise.

Login details for third party respondents

Please choose this form if you need login details to respond for a client as a third party respondent.

Login details template table           (ODS-File)

If you need login details for several clients, please download this template table and fill in the details before returning it to Statistics Austria. Please regard the information on the “Read Me” sheet for further information.

 If needed a guest access to the online questionnaire can be requested from our survey service via e-mail (eQuest@statistik.gv.at) or phone (+43 1 711 28-7272).

General questions about extensions of reporting periods, login details, paper forms etc.
Phone: +43 1 711 28-7272
Fax: +43 1 711 28-7775 LSE@statistik.gv.at Mon-Fri 7.30 am-4.00 pm
Technical questions about electronic reporting tools, login, applications etc.
Phone: +43 1 711 28-8009
Fax: +43 1 711 28-7775 helpdesk@statistik.gv.at Mon-Fri 7.30 am-4.00 pm
Content-related questions about variables, definitions, assignment of accounts etc.
Phone: +43 1 711 28-7111
Fax: +43 1 711 28-7775 LSE-Aufarbeitung@statistik.gv.at Mon-Thu 8.00 am-4.00pm, Fri 8.00 am-2.00 pm
Last updated on 2023-08-28.
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