Statistics Sweden's Business Register
Pursuant to a decision by the Swedish Riksdag, Statistics Sweden has been tasked, since 1963, to maintain a central business register.
The register contains natural persons who fulfill at least one of the criteria listed below, and estates of deceased persons that fulfill at least one of the first two of the following criteria:
- Registered for VAT
- Registered as an employer
- Registered for F-tax (business tax)
- Has a registered firm
In Statistics Sweden’s Business Register, a company is regarded as active if it is registered for VAT and/or has employees and/or if it is registered for F-tax (business tax).
All active companies have at least one local unit. A local unit is defined as each address, building or group of buildings where the company has some kind of activity.
Swedish regulations that affect the register:
- SFS 1984:692
- SFS 1984:533
- SFS 2009:400
- SFS 2001:99
- SFS 2001:100
For further information regarding these regulations, please visit:
European Community Regulations:
- Council Regulation (EEC) No 696/93, Statistical units and subordinate activity;
- Regulation (EC) No 177/2008, Establishing a common framework for business registers for statistical purposes;
- Regulation (EC) No 1893/2006, Establishing the statistical classification of economic activities NACE Revision 2.
For further information about the European Community Regulations, please follow this link:
The purpose of the Business Register
The Business Register forms part of Statistic Sweden’s business database (FDB). The FDB is used mainly as a population register, sample frame and as a coordination tool by Statistics Sweden.
The public part of the Business Register can be disseminated and is used as a source for external business and address registers.
How the Business Register is updated
The Business Register is updated mainly with information from the Swedish National Tax Board. Statistics Sweden also receives data from other administrative sources, Statistics Sweden’s own exclusive register surveys and feedback from various statistical surveys, as well as feedback from external users.
The Swedish National Tax Board submits information once a week, including information on registration, deregistration, addresses, industry codes, names, registration/deregistration in the VAT register, employer register, and the register on business tax.
Some variables include information on why and when the last information was entered in the Business Register. Old information is also stored in historical files.
Each year in August, a questionnaire is issued to all companies with more than one local unit. This survey is carried out in accordance with Statistics Sweden’s obligation to assign a workplace number (“arbetsställenummer” in Swedish) to each one of these companies for their use when submitting salary statements to the Swedish Tax Agency.