NI Inter-Departmental Business Register Statistics 2020

The latest Northern Ireland Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR) statistics were released to the public this morning at 9.30am by NISRA.

NI Inter-Departmental Business Register Statistics 2020

The Inter Departmental Business Register is available on the NISRA website.

The IDBR is a register of all businesses that are registered for Value Added Tax (VAT) and/or operating a Pay As You Earn (PAYE) scheme in the UK. The IDBR covers most of the economy including the Agriculture, Production, Construction and Service sectors.  It does not hold details on those small businesses that fall below the VAT threshold (£85,000 in 2019/2020) or do not operate a PAYE scheme. 

A snapshot of the IDBR is taken each year to produce statistics on the number of businesses operating in Northern Ireland.  These statistics are presented in the Northern Ireland IDBR report and associated tables include industry, size, legal status, location and foreign ownership data.  Information on foreign owned businesses operating in the UK is obtained by the ONS from Dun and Bradstreet, a market information company. 

Key points from the statistical bulletin are listed below.

The number of businesses operating in Northern Ireland increased by 0.8% over the year to March 2020.

The number of VAT and/or PAYE registered businesses operating in Northern Ireland is estimated to have risen by 600 (0.8%) to 76,090.  This marked the sixth consecutive year of increase following a period of decline from 2009 to 2014.

Construction, Production, and Services all saw an increase on 2019, the fifth consecutive year of growth for all 3 sectors.

The Services sector, which remained the largest in Northern Ireland, accounted for 55% of all businesses and grew by 1.6% over the year to March 2020.

The number of businesses in the Construction sector reached a six-year high (10,545 businesses) but remained 8.3% below the series high figure of (11,495) in 2010.

The geographic split of businesses across the eleven district council areas remained relatively unchanged.

Of the 600 newly registered businesses in Northern Ireland, 360 (60%) were in Belfast and a further 155 (26%) were in Lisburn and Castlereagh.  Mid Ulster, Fermanagh and Omagh, and Ards and North Down saw small decreases over the year while Causeway Coast and Glens saw the largest decrease with 60 (10%) fewer registered businesses than in 2019.

Belfast remained the District Council area with the most businesses (11,065), accounting for 15% of all VAT and/or PAYE registered businesses in Northern Ireland in 2020.  The most recent Business Register and Employment Survey (2018) showed that 30% of all employee jobs across Northern Ireland were based in the Belfast District Council area.                    

Of the 76,090 businesses operating in Northern Ireland 1,935 (2.5%) were non-NI owned.

Non-NI owned businesses accounted for 2.5% of the business population but almost one quarter (24%) of employees.

The number of businesses registered in an EU member state (excluding the Republic of Ireland) operating in Northern Ireland fell by 21% (55 businesses) over the year to March, 2020.  The number of businesses operating in Northern Ireland from countries outside of Great Britain and the EU increased by 18% (85 businesses) over the year, while the number of Republic of Ireland owned businesses increased by 4.2% (15 businesses).

Notes to editors: 

The IDBR contains information on all businesses in the United Kingdom which are either VAT registered and/or operating a PAYE scheme. The register is located in the Office for National Statistics (ONS), Newport, Wales but the Northern Ireland element of the register is updated and maintained by the Economic and Labour Market Statistics Branch (ELMSB) within the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA), an agency of the Department of Finance (DoF).

The IDBR covers most of the economy including the Agriculture, Production and Service sectors in Northern Ireland.  It does not, however, include very small businesses which fall below the VAT threshold (£85,000 in 2019/2020) or do not operate a PAYE scheme. This means that many self-employed workers will not be included on the IDBR.

Latest figures published by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), which include an estimate of the number of unregistered businesses in the private sector, indicate that at the start of 2019 the number of unregistered businesses in Northern Ireland was 53,075 (63,275 in 2018).

The full Northern Ireland Inter-Departmental Business Register Statistics report is available on the NISRA website.

The Economic and Labour Market Statistics Branch will release the following publications in June 2020:

• Labour Market Report on 16th June;
• Quarterly Employment Survey on 16th June;
• Index of Production on 18th June;
• Index of Services on 18th June, and
• Business Register and Employment Survey on 30th June

A separate briefing will be issued, on the day of publication, for each of these releases.

Feedback is welcomed and should be addressed to:
Responsible statistician:
Neil Mulhern,
Economic & Labour Market Statistics Branch (ELMS)
neil.mulhern@nisra.gov.uk or Tel: 028 90255196.

Follow NISRA on Twitter.

For media enquiries contact the Department for the Economy Press Office via email at pressoffice@economy-ni.gov.uk .

The Executive Information Service operates an out of hours service for media enquiries between 1800hrs and 0800hrs Monday to Friday and at weekends and public holidays. The duty press officer can be contacted on 028 9037 8110.

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