Annual

The survey is historically conducted by mail. It is possible to respond by internet since 2013, initially via a fillable PDF questionnaire, and then from the ESA 2018 collected in 2019, via an online questionnaire proposed by Coltrane, the internet-based data collection system developped by Insee.

The annual data on the year N is collected in several waves between February and June of the year N+1 in order to take account of businesses' different financial year end dates.

From February to October

The sampling design is a two-stage stratified clustered simple ramdom sampling, according to strata defined by the size classes crossed with the economic sectors. Above given size thresholds -- thresholds on tunover and on number of employees --, which are variable according to the economic sector, the strata are take-all strata.

120 000 legal units (principally) and enterprises

As the scope off the survey in terms of sector is very wide (see § on sector coverage), there are different models of questionnaires, adapted to the different main sectors covered by the survey.

Data and results are checked and validated by ESANE teams in Nantes and Paris, in collaboration with the sectorial partners.

A specific data editing procedure has been implemented.