Register of Public Sector Bodies 2025 - Provisional

Public corporations are government-controlled units by means of either direct or indirect government control. Due to their commercial nature, public corporations are classified outside the general government sector and in the public sector for national accounts and government accounts purposes. See Background Notes for more information.

The CSO has a legal obligation to provide Eurostat with the liabilities of public corporations. This data is transmitted to Eurostat every December.

The financial data in this chapter is based on the annual financial statements of the public corporations listed in the Register of Public Sector Bodies published in October 2025. At end December 2025, there were 381 such corporations in the public sector, including subsidiaries of large group head entities. There were 299 public corporations controlled by the central government sector, of which 251 were in the non-financial sector and 48 in the financial sector. There were 82 public corporations controlled by the local government sector, all of which were in the non-financial sector.

Subsidiaries

The analysis undertaken for the public corporations questionnaire identified 381 entities. However, annual financial information was only available at the company group level and not at subsidiary level. Therefore, the financial data presented is based on 122 entities, as the subsidiaries are incorporated in the group accounts.

Liabilities of public corporations

The liabilities of public corporations are reported once they exceed the threshold of 0.01% of GDP (€56.279 million in 2024). The 2024 total GDP figure that applied as of October 2025 was €562,794 million. This was used in conjunction with the 2024 financial data. This threshold is set by the European Commission and all EU Members States are legally obliged to send this data to Eurostat.

The liabilities of public corporations are not part of gross general government (Maastricht) debt. Nevertheless, Eurostat requires that Member States collect data on this sector as their liabilities are referred to as “contingent liabilities” and are deemed to be potential obligations of government. These liabilities will only materialise as actual government liabilities if specific conditions prevail and therefore they are not included in the general government accounts.

A number of additional important aspects should also be taken into account when analysing the liabilities of public corporations: (i) the data collection refers to liabilities only and does not include assets; (ii) the liabilities of public corporations are consolidated, therefore liabilities owed to other entities in the same company group are excluded.

Further financial data is collected from relevant annual financial statements when total liabilities exceed the 0.01% GDP threshold. At end December 2025, 26 entities breached this threshold, 25 controlled by the central government sector and 1 controlled by the local government sector. The total liabilities of the 26 public corporations were €178,477 million (32% of GDP). Of these, €1,452 million were owed to government, such as tax and social welfare.

See Background Notes for more information.

Figure 1.1 in the Public Sector chapter displays a breakdown of the Register by subsector.

A complete list of the Register is available on the Register of Public Sector Bodies 2025 - Provisional Table 1.1 (XLS 68KB)

A CSV file is also available on the Register of Public Sector Bodies 2025 - Provisional Table 1.1 csv 

NACE economic activity

Figure 6.1 below outlines the NACE economic activity classification of these 381 public corporations. See Nace Rev 2 classification for full sector descriptions.