EU Business Formation & Survival Rates — Eurostat Demography

Official source. No API key. Pay per record.

Who this is for and the decision it supports

Economic researchers, market-entry strategists and enterprise-policy teams tracking EU business formation, survival and size-class dynamics (Eurostat business demography).

One record answers: for this country, size class and activity, how many firms were born/survived/died in a period — an input to market-entry, competition and policy models.

Sample output

Real rows from a live run of this actor (first 5 rows, selected columns).

One full record from the same run, exactly as delivered:

{
  "record_id": "A:V11910:0:B:DE:2015",
  "dataset_code": "bd_9bd_sz_cl_r2",
  "indicator": "Business demography by size class (NACE Rev.2): births, deaths, survival, active enterprises",
  "freq": "A",
  "freq_label": "Annual",
  "indic_sb": "V11910",
  "indic_sb_label": "Population of active enterprises in t - number",
  "sizeclas": "0",
  "sizeclas_label": "Zero",
  "nace_r2": "B",
  "nace_r2_label": "Mining and quarrying",
  "geo": "DE",
  "geo_label": "Germany",
  "time_period": "2015",
  "value": 639,
  "obs_status": null,
  "source": "Eurostat",
  "source_dataset": "bd_9bd_sz_cl_r2",
  "licence": "Eurostat, CC BY 4.0. Reformatted from Eurostat JSON-stat; values unmodified. Third-party content and logos excluded. Commercial-barred geographies removed.",
  "attribution": "Source: Eurostat (dataset bd_9bd_sz_cl_r2)",
  "caveat": "Business demography indicators (enterprise births, deaths, survival, active counts and related rates) by size class and NACE Rev.2 activity. Read the indic_sb code to know which measure a row carries; counts are enterprise counts, not turnover. Values reproduced verbatim from Eurostat.",
  "observed_at": "2026-09-25T17:20:06Z"
}

What one record is

Each record is one Eurostat business-demography observation: country, business indicator, size class, NACE activity, period, value and unit, with provenance.

Your first run

Paste this input and run it:

{
  "geo": "DE",
  "sinceTimePeriod": "2018",
  "maxRecords": 10
}

Set geo to a country and get clean per-observation JSON immediately. Here is a real record from that exact input:

{
  "record_id": "A:V11910:0:B:DE:2018",
  "dataset_code": "bd_9bd_sz_cl_r2",
  "indicator": "Business demography by size class (NACE Rev.2): births, deaths, survival, active enterprises",
  "freq": "A",
  "freq_label": "Annual",
  "indic_sb": "V11910",
  "indic_sb_label": "Population of active enterprises in t - number",
  "sizeclas": "0",
  "sizeclas_label": "Zero",
  "nace_r2": "B",
  "nace_r2_label": "Mining and quarrying",
  "geo": "DE"
}

What the sample costs: $0.05 per record. The sample above delivers 10 records, so it costs at most $0.50.

Pulling in bulk

Raise Maximum records and widen the period to pull a country's full panel. A buyer pulls a country's full business-demography panel, then repeats per country to compare EU markets.

To expand from the sample: raise Maximum records, and widen any filters shown in the input. You are billed only for records actually delivered, so a sample stays cheap and a full pull is predictable.

When to run it again

Eurostat republishes this annual cube each year; re-run with a later sinceTimePeriod to append the newest year.

Update schedule: Annual — Eurostat releases new years for this cube on its publication schedule. Verified live: observations return addressable by year from the official Eurostat cube.

How this is different

EU firm formation/survival/size-class demography — distinct from company-level enrichment; this is aggregate business-demography statistics.

Limitations (source coverage vs product coverage)

• COUNTRY x size-class x activity aggregates, not company-level records.
• Annual grain with a publication lag; the newest year is the most recent Eurostat release.
• Coverage is Eurostat's reporting countries and NACE activities.

FAQ

Company-level?

No. Aggregate business demography by country, size class and activity.

How current?

Annual, with Eurostat's usual lag. Re-run when a new year is published.

What does an empty run mean?

No observation for that geo/period/size class — widen the period or country.

How much does it cost? You pay $0.05 per business demography record delivered to your dataset (less on higher Apify plans). Set the record limit in the input to cap what a run can cost. Records that are not delivered are never charged.

How do I get the data out? Every run saves its records to an Apify dataset. You can download it as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML or HTML from the run page, or read it through the Apify API.

Can I run it on a schedule? Yes. Use Apify Schedules to run it daily, weekly or monthly, with the same input each time.

Can I call it from my own code? Yes. Call nexgensignal/eu-business-demography-records through the Apify API or the Apify Python and JavaScript clients, pass the same JSON input as the form, and read the dataset when the run finishes.

What happens if the source is down? The run ends with a clear status message, and nothing is charged for records that were not delivered.

Input fields

Every input this actor accepts, read from its input schema:

Field	Type	Default	Description
sinceTimePeriod	string	"2015"	Return observations from this year onward (this is an annual cube; latest published year is 2020). Use a year (2015). Earlier start = more records.
maxRecords	integer	500	Maximum records delivered and billed. You are billed only for records actually delivered. Raise it to pull the full set.
geo (required)	string	"DE"	Eurostat geo code to pull (e.g. DE, FR, IT, ES). Required: this cube is too large to return in one request, so it is retrieved one territory at a time.

Output fields

Every field in each delivered record, read from its output schema:

Field	Type	Meaning
record_id	string	Composite source-native key across all dimensions.
dataset_code	string	Eurostat dataset code.
indicator	string	Indicator name.
freq	string	freq dimension code, verbatim.
freq_label	string	freq dimension label, verbatim.
indic_sb	string	indic_sb dimension code, verbatim.
indic_sb_label	string	indic_sb dimension label, verbatim.
sizeclas	string	sizeclas dimension code, verbatim.
sizeclas_label	string	sizeclas dimension label, verbatim.
nace_r2	string	nace_r2 dimension code, verbatim.
nace_r2_label	string	nace_r2 dimension label, verbatim.
geo	string	geo dimension code, verbatim.
geo_label	string	geo dimension label, verbatim.
time_period	string	Time period, verbatim (e.g. 2024-Q1 or 2024-01).
value	number	Observation value, reproduced verbatim (published zeros kept).
obs_status	string	Eurostat observation status/flag when present, verbatim.
source	string	Data source (Eurostat).
source_dataset	string	Source dataset code.
licence	string	Licence and reformatting notice.
attribution	string	Required attribution string.
caveat	string	Interpretation caveat.
observed_at	string	UTC timestamp the record was retrieved.

Related actors

• eu-air-passenger-flow-records — EU air passenger volumes
• eu-regulatory-change-records — EU legal acts
• company-data-enrichment-api — resolve firms to legal entities

Source, licence and how it is built

Source and licence are carried on every record (source, licence, attribution, observed_at). The actor reads only the official public endpoint, honours the source's robots and licence terms, and emits values unmodified with full provenance. Records are keyed on a stable id so re-runs upsert cleanly into a table you keep. Row delivery and billing are exactly equal: you are charged once per record delivered (push-then-charge), so an empty run costs nothing.

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