Survey on the access to finance of enterprises (SAFE)

The survey covers micro, small, medium-sized and large firms and it provides evidence on the financing conditions faced by SMEs compared with those of large firms during the past six months. In addition to a breakdown into firm size classes, it provides evidence across branches of economic activity, euro area countries, firm age, financial autonomy of the firms, and ownership of the firms. The first wave of the survey was held in June-July 2009.

Part of the survey is run by the ECB every six months to assess the latest developments of the financing conditions of firms in the euro area. The more comprehensive survey has been run every year since 2013 (previously every two years) in cooperation with the European Commission.

The survey covers micro (1 to 9 employees), small (10 to 49 employees), medium-sized (50 to 249 employees) and large firms (250 or more employees) and it provides evidence on the financing conditions faced by SMEs compared with those of large firms during the past six months. In addition to a breakdown into firm size classes, it provides evidence across branches of economic activity, euro area countries, firm age, financial autonomy of the firms, and ownership of the firms.

Part of the survey is run by the ECB every six months to assess the latest developments of the financing conditions of firms in the euro area. The more comprehensive survey, run together with the European Commission, was initially conducted every two years, i.e. in 2009H1, 2011H1 and 2013H1. As from the wave 2014H1, the extended survey is run on the annual basis.

Results, description of the survey and questionnaire