Close-up of two people in suits shaking hands.

In 2021, 1.1% of EU market producers enterprises were foreign-controlled. More than half (59.4%) were controlled by enterprises from other EU countries, with 40.6% registered outside the EU.

Foreign-controlled enterprises contributed significantly to the EU economy, constituting 22.5% of value added in the business producers market in the EU. Value added of foreign-controlled enterprises was the highest in Ireland (71.9%), Luxembourg (55.5%) and Slovakia (49.4%). Conversely, the lowest shares of value added were observed in France (14.7%), Cyprus (15.6%) and Germany (16.7%). 

Regarding the number of enterprises, the share of foreign-controlled enterprises was the highest in Luxembourg (29.2%), followed by Estonia (10.3%) and Poland (6.8%). At the other end of the range, Belgium (0.1%), Italy (0.3%) and France (0.4%) recorded the lowest shares of foreign enterprises in the market producer economy.

In terms of employees and self-employed persons, foreign-controlled enterprises represented 15.0% of EU jobs. Luxembourg (43.8%), Poland (32.1%), and Ireland (28.2%) recorded the highest shares. In contrast, foreign-controlled enterprises accounted for less than 10% of jobs in Greece (7.5%), Cyprus (7.8%) and Italy (9.5%).

Foreign controlled enterprises, 2021, % of business market producers out of total economy. Chart. See the link to full dataset below.


 Source datasets: fats_activ