Overview - Mittelstand

Small and medium-sized enterprises are the engine of the German economy. This is illustrated by statistical data on the macro-economic significance of SMEs and by SME key indicators for Germany and North Rhine-Westphalia (cf. the table below). The following data are based on SME definition by the European Commission.

Please note that we currently provide only a selection of the most important statistics on our English website.

For further statistics, please refer to our German section.

• In 2022, approx. 3.41 million German enterprises classified as small and medium-sized enterprises, accounting for 99.2% of the total number of enterprises with turnover from goods and services and/or employees.¹
• German SMEs generated an annual turnover of approx. 2.66 bn € in 2022, which represents 27.3% of the total turnover of German enterprises.¹  
• Approx. 19.1 million employees were employed by SMEs in Germany in 2022, accounting for 53.6 % of total employment.¹
• At the end of 2022, some 70.0% of all apprentices were trained by establishments with less than 250 employees (subject to social insurance contribution).²
• German SMEs had a share of almost 55.7% in total net value added in Germany in 2022..²

• usinesses with less than 250 employees spent 8.55 bn € on R&D, equal to a share of 7.8% in total R&D expenditures in the business sector in 2022.