Annual National Accounts of Spain: Main aggregates

The estimates of the main annual aggregates of the Spanish Annual National Accounts published today are part of the regular cycle of revisions—for the last three years—according to the INE's standard annual revision policy of its accounts operations.

On this occasion, the INE has carried out the standard revision for the years 2022, 2023 and 2024, with greater detail on the information published in the final data (2022) than in the provisional (2023) or preliminary (2024) data.

This process has been implemented in coordination with the Bank of Spain—for financial accounts and the international Balance of Payments and investment position statistics—and with the National Audit Office (IGAE) for the Public Administration accounts.

This year, together with the usual dissemination of the final estimates of the detailed accounting framework by products and activity branches of the 2022 Supply and Use Tables in current and volume terms, and for the year 2023 in current terms, the INE has advanced the compilation of the Supply and Use Tables for the year 2023 at prices of the previous year, which will also be available on a provisional basis. Spain is thus more than a year ahead of the deadlines required by the European System of Accounts (ESA) Regulation for their compilation.

Taking all these considerations into account, the annual rate of change in GDP volume for 2022 is revised upwards by two tenths of a percentage point, for 2023 by two tenths of a percentage point downwards and for 2024 by three tenths of a percentage point upward, to 3.5%. 

GDP increased in volume by 3.5% in 2024, according to the preliminary estimates of the Annual National Accounts of Spain. This data shows an increase of three tenths with respect to that advanced by the QNAS in March.

This preliminary estimate incorporates data from the 2024 Household Budget Survey (HBS), preliminary data from the Economic Accounts for Agriculture, updated data from foreign trade, Public Administration accounts and data from Non-Profit Institutions Serving Households (NPISHs).

As for then growth composition, there is now a higher contribution estimated from internal demand (3.3%, compared to 2.8%) and a lower contribution from external demand (0.2%, compared to 0.4%).

The volume growth of GDP in 2023 compared to 2022 was estimated at 2.5%, compared to the 2.7% published in September of last year. The revisions for 2023—which goes from preliminary to provisional status— are primarily due to three factors:

• The inclusion of information from structural statistics that provide data on reported production and intermediate consumption from various market branches, which was not available a year ago (such as Structural Business Statistics, the Construction Industry Survey, etc.). Before structural information became available for 2023, estimates of value added developments used synthetic indicators based mainly on short-term production indices as a proxy and were therefore based on the assumption that the relationship between short-term production data and structural value added data at the activity branch level would remain stable.
• The incorporation of revised data from statistical sources which previously had an advance or preliminary status (Balance of Payments, Public Administration Accounts, Economic Accounts for Agriculture, etc.).
• Estimates and a resource-employment balancing process at a much more detailed degree than in the preliminary estimate. In this respect, the methodological improvement initiated two years ago of bringing forward the balance by product of the provisional origin-destination table by means of the supply and demand approach has continued, adding as a novelty this year the balance both at current prices and in terms of volume.

As a result, the aggregate gross capital formation has been revised upwards by two tenths of a percentage point, albeit with its components developing differently. In the case of inventories and acquisition of valuables, while in 2022 they reached an all-time high of 30.288 billion euros in current terms and a growth of 46.4%, in 2023 they recorded a decrease of 67.6%, compared to the 37.0% previously estimated, to 9.812 billion.

This downward revision was mainly due to the evolution of inventories, which declined by 75.9%, compared with the previously estimated 42.4%. This update is in line with the EU, where 24 of the 27 countries recorded an average year-on-year decrease of 86.4%.

In the case of gross fixed capital formation, its rate of change is estimated at 8.7%, compared with the previous 5.3% in current terms, with intellectual property assets growing by 14.0% and construction assets by 8.3%.

Both revisions are explained by the availability, for the first time, of the aforementioned structural sources and revised data from already available sources, as well as the supply-demand balance from the Supply and Use Tables. Thus, the revisions in volume growth rates stem mainly from those at current prices.

On the expenditure side, the other two components of demand have been revised downwards: final consumption expenditure (2.5%, down from the previous 2.7%) and the balance of foreign trade in goods and services.

The variation rate in the volume of GDP was estimated at 6.4% for the year 2022. This estimation is now final and revises the provisional data two tenths upward from 6.2%.

The revisions of the aggregated accounts for 2022 are fundamentally due to the incorporation of the definitive version of the Agriculture and Forestry Accounts, the final update of the NPISH estimation sources and the final tabulation of the Supply and Use Tables, which involves balancing the supply and demand across 94 activities and 140 products, both at current prices and those of the previous year.

All national accounts results published from today onwards will be consistent with the main aggregates of the national economy released today in the accounting base of BR-2024, according to the established schedule.

• 26 September:
  • Quarterly National Accounts of Spain: main aggregates, up to the second quarter of 2025.
• 30 September:
  • Quarterly National Accounts of Spain: aggregates by activity branch. 1995-2024 Series.
  • Annual Non-Financial Accounts for the Institutional Sectors. 1995-2024 Series.
  • Quarterly Non-Financial Accounts for the Institutional Sectors. Up to the second quarter of 2025.
  • Supply and Use Tables. 2022 (at current and previous year prices).

As a novelty, on 30 September the INE will also publish the preliminary Spanish Regional Accounts with GDP estimates by autonomous community and provinces updated for the 2000-2024 period.

And on the same date, for the first time, the Supply and Use Tables will be published retropolated from 2016 in the RE-2024, thus providing a homogeneous eight-year series (from 2016 to the most recent 2023) for one of the main statistical tools used in economic analysis.

On the other hand, the Supply and Use Tables at current prices and in volume for 2023 (provisional data) will be released at the end of October, more than one year ahead of the deadline required by Eurostat.

The final Input-Output table for the year 2022, as well as its retropolation from 2016 in the RE-2024 accounting basis, will be disseminated in December.

This timetable is in line with the required ESA 2010 deadlines and provides voluntary data beyond the requirements set out in the Eurostat Data Transmission Programme.

The data published today for 2023 and 2024 are provisional and will be revised next September. All the results of this operation are available at INEbase.

The next extraordinary regulated revision of the national accounts is planned for 2030. In addition to the recommendations of the European statistical system, the new methodological basis of accounting (ESA-2030) will be implemented.

In accordance with the Commission's Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/137, the INE has begun to work on incorporating the new National Classification of Economic Activities CNAE-2025 in all its statistical operations.

In the case of the Annual National Accounts, the first publication of results with CNAE-2025 will take place in September 2030.