Large businesses accounted for 41.7% of the European Union’s exports of services to countries outside the bloc in 2024, according to new Eurostat figures. Smaller companies had a much greater share in Malta, Estonia and Luxembourg.
The EU sold €1.579 trillion of services to non-EU countries during the year, 9.7% more than in 2023. Eurostat’s figures, published on November 13, show how the size and principal activity of exporters differ across the single market.
The breakdown has a substantial limitation: the size of the exporting enterprise was unknown for 37.4% of the value recorded. The shares assigned to large, medium and small companies are consequently not a complete picture of every exporter.
Smaller exporters stand out in three countries
Eurostat classifies enterprises with 250 or more employees as large for these figures. They accounted for 41.7% of the EU total. Small enterprises, with up to 49 employees, represented 11.8%, while those with 50 to 249 employees contributed 9.0%.
Those percentages describe the value of services sold, not the number of firms making sales. A small number of companies with large contracts can account for more export revenue than many smaller suppliers.
The national pattern was uneven. Large enterprises accounted for more than half of services exported outside the EU in nine member countries. Their shares were 71.7% in Denmark, 71.2% in Finland, 69.1% in Germany and 65.0% in Slovakia.
Small enterprises accounted for more than half in Malta, at 78.6%, Estonia, at 61.4%, and Luxembourg, at 56.8%, according to Eurostat’s release. The figures are shares of export value, not estimates of the proportion of small businesses that export.
The EU-wide unknown-size category also cautions against treating the union totals as a complete league table of large and small exporters. The figures cannot by themselves explain why the national shares differ.
Information businesses account for the largest sector share
Companies whose main activity was information and communication accounted for €362.0 billion, or 22.9%, of EU service exports outside the bloc. Manufacturing enterprises followed with €249.3 billion, or 15.8%, and transportation and storage companies contributed €236.2 billion, or 15.0%.
Eurostat groups the companies by their main business activity. A manufacturer can sell services as well as goods, so its presence in the services data should not be read as a measurement of goods shipments.
Services can cross borders in different ways. A business may provide software, consulting or technical support to a foreign customer, while transport companies can sell freight or other services across countries. The release measures the value of recorded exports, not the profit earned from each contract.
Its focus is also different from merchandise trade. In our earlier coverage of G20 trade, the OECD tracked changes in both goods and services over a later quarterly period. The new Eurostat release examines the characteristics of EU service exporters in 2024.
What the figures can and cannot tell businesses
International sales can give a specialist supplier access to customers beyond its home market. Smaller firms may still face costs associated with finding clients, meeting foreign rules, managing contracts and receiving payment across borders. The aggregate trade figures do not measure which of those obstacles matters most.
Nor do they show how individual firms performed after entering a foreign market. Export values can change with prices, contract size and the mix of services sold, as well as with the volume of work. A 9.7% increase in value is not necessarily an equivalent increase in the quantity of services supplied.
The 2024 data offer a baseline for companies and policymakers assessing cross-border services. They also leave a sizeable group of exports without a known enterprise size, making better classification relevant to any comparison of support for large and small businesses.
