Register of Public Sector Bodies 2024 - Provisional

Public corporations are government-controlled units by means of either direct or indirect government control. Due to their commercial nature, public corporations are classified outside the general government sector and in the public sector for national accounts and government accounts purposes. See Background Notes for more information.

The CSO have a legal obligation to provide Eurostat with the liabilities of public corporations. This data is transmitted to Eurostat every December.

The financial data in this chapter is based on the annual financial statements of the public corporations listed in the Register of Public Sector Bodies published in October 2024. At end December 2024, there were 373 such corporations in the public sector, including subsidiaries of large group head entities. There were 306 public corporations controlled by the central government sector, of which 249 were in the non-financial sector and 57 in the financial sector. There were 67 public corporations controlled by the local government sector, all of which were in the non-financial sector.

Subsidiaries

As part of the analysis undertaken for the public corporations questionnaire, while there were some 373 entities, annual financial information was only available at the company group level and not at subsidiary level. Therefore, the financial data presented is based on 119 entities, as the subsidiaries are incorporated in the group accounts. 

The largest number of subsidiaries for a company group head was 108 and the next highest numbers were 40 subsidiaries for two company groups.

Liabilities of public corporations

The liabilities of public corporations are reported once they exceed the threshold of 0.01% of GDP (€50.995 million in 2023). Total GDP figure of €509,952 million in 2023, used in conjunction with the 2023 financial data. This threshold is set by the European Commission and all EU Members States are legally obliged to send this data to Eurostat.

The liabilities of public corporations are not part of gross general government (Maastricht) debt. Nevertheless, Eurostat requires that member states collect data on this sector as their liabilities are referred to as “contingent liabilities” and are deemed to be potential obligations of government. These liabilities will only materialise as actual government liabilities if specific conditions prevail and are therefore not included in the general government accounts. 

A number of additional important aspects should also be taken into account when analysing the liabilities of public corporations: (i) the data collection refers to liabilities only and does not include assets; (ii) the liabilities of public corporations are consolidated, therefore liabilities owed to other entities in the same company group are consolidated.

Further financial data is collected from relevant annual financial statements when total liabilities exceed the 0.01% GDP threshold. At end December 2024, 25 entities breached this threshold, 24 controlled by the  central government sector and 1 controlled by the local government sector. The total liabilities of the 25 public corporations were €172,795 million (34% of GDP). Of these, €1,312 million liabilities were owed to government, such as tax and social welfare. 

See Background Notes for more information.

Figure 1.1 in the Public Sector chapter displays a breakdown of the Register by subsector.

A complete list of the Register is available on the Register of Public Sector Bodies 2024 - Provisional Table 1.1 (XLS 52KB) .

A CSV file is also available on the Register of Public Sector Bodies 2024 - Provisional Table 1.1 csv file.

NACE economic activity

Figure 6.1 below outlines the NACE economic activity classification of these 352 public corporations. The largest number of public corporations is in the Electricity, gas economic activity sector (124 corporations). Financial and insurance activities (72 corporations) and Arts and entertainment (47 corporations) are the next largest economic activity sectors (see Nace Rev 2 classification for full sector descriptions).