The Tax Agency begins to publish an advance thermometer of economic activity in Spain

• The evolution of daily sales will be published weekly, which was created as the most complete high-frequency indicator that currently exists in our country.

• The publication, which will consist of a summary report and a detailed database, has a coverage rate of 70% of non-exempt domestic sales in Spain.

• The reference series of the statistics is the 28-day moving average corrected for the so-called 'deterministic effects', a series that reduces the strong irregularity of sales caused by factors not related to the underlying economic development.

• Daily sales grow by 26.7% year-on-year, with improvements of up to 114.5% in the case of the hospitality industry

• The statistics also allow us to compare the most recent evolution of the activity with that before the pandemic (+22.3% compared to the same period in 2019), an improvement that affects practically all sectors.

December 22, 2021.- Starting today, the Tax Agency is making available to users a new statistical tool that serves as an early indicator of economic activity in Spain. The 'Daily Sales Statistics of the Immediate Information Supply (SII)', which was born as the most complete high-frequency indicator that currently exists in Spain, offers an evolution and comparison, both temporal and sectoral, of economic activity, in terms of domestic sales, of the nearly 61,000 covered by the SII –large companies and groups for VAT purposes, as well as other taxpayers with a monthly refund regime–.

Together, these taxpayers represent 70% of non-exempt domestic sales in Spain, which offers a significant degree of coverage for the purposes of analysing the country's most recent macroeconomic situation.

Starting with the SII, the series will be published daily, although the report accompanying the series, as well as the database, will be published weekly. The last reference date for the data is two weeks before its publication, the time required for the information to be considered complete and refined.

The geographical scope is the so-called Common Tax Regime Territory; That is, companies that operate exclusively in the territories managed by the estates of the Basque Country and Navarra, and companies that do so in the territories that are outside the scope of application of VAT (Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla) are excluded.

The coverage of statistics by activity is very varied, given that the SII companies are very representative of some sectors, while in others their number and weight are small, as is the case in part of the retail trade, in hotels, restaurants and some modes of transport.

The SII's daily sales statistics are presented to the public through a summary report with the main general and sectoral results, and a database. The reference series for the statistics is the 28-day moving average corrected for so-called 'deterministic effects'. This series is considered the most robust signal for monitoring, as it reduces, in a relatively simple way, the strong irregularity in sales caused by factors that have nothing to do with the underlying economic development (for example, divergences in the invoice dates of companies that generate anomalous values, or the accumulation of invoices on certain days of the month).

Greater economic activity than before the pandemic

As an example, in this first report, dated December 21, the last date of data collection is taken into consideration 14 days earlier. The analysis period therefore covers the period from 11 November to 7 December.

For this period, the adjusted 28-day moving average ('MM28') year-on-year rate stands at +26.7%. The highest year-on-year growth in the indicator was recorded in the hotel and catering industry (114.5%), energy supply (101.1%) and transport and storage (56.3%).

The statistics also allow us to compare the most recent evolution of activity with that recorded before the pandemic. In the reference period of the weekly report, sales grew by 22.3% compared to the same period in 2019 and almost all sectors also showed positive growth rates compared to those recorded two years ago.

The study is published on the Agency's website, sede.agenciatributaria.gob.es .