There were 2.03 million cultural enterprises in the EU in 2022, representing 6.3% of all businesses within the business economy (industry, construction and market services).
According to the figures released by the EU’s statistics agency Eurostat, the cultural enterprises generated €199 billion in value added, which was 2.0% of the total value added in the business economy.
The highest share of cultural enterprises in the national business economies was registered in the Netherlands (11.0%) and Sweden (10.8%), followed by Slovenia and Lithuania (both 8.9%) and Austria (8.1%). In contrast, cultural enterprises accounted for less than 5% of all businesses in 6 EU countries: Bulgaria and Slovakia (both 3.1%), Poland (4.3%), Greece (4.7%) and Denmark and Romania (both 4.8%).
Over one-quarter of the cultural enterprises in the EU were engaged in creative, arts and entertainment activities (27.4%). Meanwhile, publishing (14.9%) and architecture (14.6%) accounted for the largest shares of the total value added generated by the EU’s cultural sector.
A breakdown analysis by size class, shows the importance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the sector. In 2022 in the EU, 78% of people working in creative, arts and entertainment enterprises, were employed in micro enterprises, 11.6% in small enterprises, and 6.5% in medium enterprises. Only 3.9% of these professionals were employed in large enterprises.
Statistics Explained article on culture statistics – cultural enterprises, Eurostat
