World Bank Enterprise Surveys

Informal Sector Enterprise Surveys

The Informal Sector Enterprise Surveys measure the characteristics and activities of unregistered businesses around the world. Informal businesses are found everywhere and play a significant role in economic activity. However, they are generally missing from official records, listings of active businesses, and business-level surveys.

The Informal Sector Enterprise ­­Surveys fill this data gap by following a rigorous survey methodology that fits the unique characteristics of the sector. The surveys use tailored questionnaires and a geographically-based sampling strategy, Adaptive Cluster Sampling, which discovers these businesses while also obtaining representative samples. Explore the indicators by economy or topic, browse our surveys, or access the granular data on the WBES data portal.

Micro Enterprise Surveys and Other Surveys

The Micro Enterprise Surveys provide a deep understanding of the business environment for micro enterprises (1-4 workers), which are too small for the standard Formal Sector Enterprise Survey.

Other business surveys carried out by the Enterprise Analysis Unit include:

• Covid-19 surveys in 2020-2022, in which data was gathered on the breadth and depth of the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the world population and its productive capacity.
• Topic Surveys - private sector surveys on specific topics such as innovation, tourism, among others.

Explore the indicators, browse our surveys, or access the granular data on the WBES data portal.