Common rules for the collection of census data on population and housing

KEY POINTS

Data submission

EU Member States are required to submit data on the population to the European Commission (Eurostat), covering:

• various demographic, social and economic characteristics of persons, families and households;
• housing at the national, regional and local levels.

These data are as set out in the regulation’s annex and its implementing regulations.

Data sources

The regulation sets out the data sources on which Member States must base their statistics. These include:

• conventional censuses;
• register-based censuses;
• a combination of conventional censuses and sample surveys;
• a combination of register-based censuses and sample surveys;
• a combination of register-based censuses and conventional censuses;
• a combination of register-based censuses, sample surveys and conventional censuses; and
• appropriate surveys with rotating samples (rolling censuses).

Data protection

Member States must take all measures necessary to meet the requirements of data protection. Their own data protection rules are not affected by this regulation.

Data transmission

Each Member State must determine a date to which its data refer (a reference date), which must fall in the reference year. The first reference year is 2011. Reference years fall on the first year of each decade.

Member States must inform Eurostat of any revision or correction of the statistics transmitted and of any changes in the chosen data sources and methodology. This must be done no later than one month before the release of the revised data.

Member States must provide Eurostat with final, validated and aggregated data and metadata within 27 months of the end of the reference year.

To fulfil the requirements of this regulation, in 2010 the Commission adopted the first programme of the statistical data and of the metadata to be transmitted, for the reference year 2011, and in 2017 it adopted the second programme, for the reference year 2021.

Member States must transmit the data to Eurostat in accordance with the EU law on data transmission, subject to statistical confidentiality as set out in Regulation (EC) No 223/2009. They must ensure that the transmitted data do not permit the direct identification of the statistical units. Transmission is in electronic format and is in accordance with the specifications agreed by the European Statistical System Committee, the committee that assists and advises the Commission (Eurostat).

Quality assessment

Member States must ensure that the data sources and the methodology used to satisfy the requirements of the regulation meet the essential features of population and housing censuses as laid down in the regulation, i.e.:

• individual enumeration,
• simultaneity,
• universality within a defined territory,
• availability of small-area data, and
• defined periodicity.

Member States must provide Eurostat with a report on the quality of the data transmitted, outlining the extent to which the chosen data sources and methodology meet the essential features of population and housing censuses.

The Commission assesses the quality of the data transmitted. In cooperation with the Member States’ competent authorities, it provides methodological recommendations designed to ensure the quality of the data and the metadata produced, in particular acknowledging the Conference of European Statisticians Recommendations for the 2010 Censuses of Population and Housing.

Repeal

Regulation (EC) No 763/2008 will be repealed and replaced by Regulation (EU) 2025/2458 (see summary) as of 1 January 2028.