SME Policy Index for Western Balkans and Türkiye 2026 – Economy Profile for Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnia and Herzegovina: SME definition and data coverage

SME definition

Both entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina now apply small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) definitions fully aligned with the EU acquis (Table 1), making this assessment the first SMEPI cycle in which a single, harmonised definitional framework can be applied across the economy. In Republika Srpska, the SME definition was aligned with EU employment and financial thresholds in 2019 (Republika Srpska, 2024[1]). In the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a new Law on Encouraging the Development of Small Businesses, adopted in 2024 (Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2024[2]), introduced an updated definition fully aligned with EU thresholds on employment, annual income and asset value (European Commission, 2003[3]), formalising the categorisation into micro, small and medium-sized enterprises. The result is that both entities’ legislative definitions now correspond to the standard EU SME Recommendation criteria. This alignment resolves a long-standing comparability gap and removes a definitional inconsistency that complicated cross-entity policy co-ordination and limited the validity of economy-wide benchmarking.

Table 1. Definition of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Category	EU definition	Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH and RS)
Micro	< 10 employees ≤ EUR 2 million turnover or balance sheet	< 10 employees ≤ EUR 2 million annual income or assets
Small	< 50 employees ≤ EUR 10 million turnover or balance sheet	< 50 employees ≤ EUR 10 million annual income or assets
Medium-sized	< 250 employees ≤ EUR 50 million turnover or ≤ EUR 43 million balance sheet	< 250 employees ≤ EUR 50 million annual income or ≤ EUR 43 million assets

Notes: Both entities now apply definitions aligned with the EU SME Recommendation (2003/361/EC) in full. In Republika Srpska, alignment was completed in 2019; in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, through the Law on Encouraging the Development of Small Businesses (2024).

Financial thresholds are expressed in EUR-equivalent terms at the fixed BAM/EUR rate.

Sources: Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (2024[2]); Republika Srpska (2024[1]); European Commission (2003[3]).

Data coverage

The sector overview presented above draws on structural business statistics (SBS) from three parallel statistical systems: the state-level Agency for Statistics of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BHAS), the Federal Institute of Statistics (FZS) in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Republika Srpska Institute of Statistics (RSIS), supplemented by Eurostat datasets for trade and macroeconomic context. Table 2 summarises the key data dimensions, their availability and currency. All three offices publish SBS using the same three-tier size classification – small (0-49 employees), medium (50‑249) and large (250+) – rather than the EU standard four-class breakdown, as a separate microenterprise category is not published at the economy level. Both the state-level statistics office (BHAS) and the Republika Srpska Institute of Statistics (RSIS) provide a full cross-tabulation of enterprise counts, employment, turnover, value added and personnel costs by both NACE Rev. 2 sector and size class, whereas the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Institute for Statistics publishes size and sector breakdowns separately. Foreign trade disaggregated by enterprise characteristics is available through Eurostat with a series extending through 2024. Unlike the SBS, the Statistical Business Register maintained by the BHAS uses the EU-standard four-class size breakdown, including a separate micro category (0‑9 employees) and provides annual enterprise counts by NACE sector and size class dating back to 2009. However, no dedicated enterprise demography framework exists: while the Statistical Business Register provides annual enterprise stocks by size class and sector, none of the statistical offices publish systematic birth, death or survival rates or high-growth enterprise indicators.

Table 2. Core statistical sources for the SME sector overview, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Data source	Size-class breakdown	Sectoral breakdown	Size × sector cross-tab	Time series	Key indicators
Structural business statistics – state and entity level	Partial (small 0-49, medium 50-249, large 250+); no separate micro category	Yes (NACE Rev. 2)	Yes at the state level (BHAS) and in Republika Srpska (RSIS); the FZS publishes size and sector breakdowns separately	Series; most recent reference year 2024	Number of enterprises and entrepreneurs; persons employed; turnover; value added at factor costs; personnel costs – published by the BHAS, the FZS and the RSIS; data for the state level made available through Eurostat harmonised series
Foreign trade by enterprise characteristics	Yes (micro, small, medium, large)	Yes (NACE Rev. 2)	Yes	2016-2024	Number of exporting firms; export value by size class and NACE sector – available through Eurostat; not published domestically
Business demography	Yes (micro, small, medium, large)	Yes (NACE Rev. 2)	Yes (enterprise stock by size class and sector)	Annual stock series from 2009; no published demographic flow indicators	Annual enterprise stocks by size class and sector, including a separate micro category; no published birth/death rates, survival rates, high-growth firms or gazelles; net entry can be approximated from year-on-year changes in enterprise stocks

Note: BHAS: Agency for Statistics of Bosnia and Herzegovina; FZS: Federal Institute of Statistics of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina; RSIS: Republika Srpska Institute of Statistics.

Sources: BHAS (2025[4]); FZS (2026[5]); RSIS (2026[6]); Eurostat (2025[7]).

The assessment of individual policy dimensions additionally draws on standardised statistical questionnaires administered by the OECD to state-level counterpart institutions. Bosnia and Herzegovina’s response reflects its multi-level institutional architecture: the principal respondents were the BHAS at the state level and the Public Procurement Agency, with supplementary entity-level contributions from the FZS (Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina) and the RSIS (Republika Srpska) on selected dimensions. The questionnaires cover nine thematic areas plus a general statistics module. Of the approximately 160 indicators requested, Bosnia and Herzegovina provided data for roughly one-fifth with meaningful multi-year coverage, with entity-level submissions adding depth in women’s entrepreneurship, enterprise skills and internationalisation. Coverage is strongest in innovation and research and development (R&D) metrics – where near-complete gross domestic expenditure on research and development and business expenditure on research and development time series were provided alongside Community Innovation Survey-based innovation data – and in digital transformation, where most indicators were populated at the state level. The weakest areas are bankruptcy proceedings and the green economy, where the questionnaires were returned with no data, and access to finance, where only a single indicator was reported. A distinctive feature is the fragmented sourcing: women’s entrepreneurship data were submitted exclusively by the RSIS, social enterprise and co-operative data by the FZS, and internationalisation data by all three levels – underscoring the co-ordination challenge inherent in constructing economy-wide representative indicators from data produced at different administrative levels. Table 3 provides a dimension-by-dimension summary.

Table 3. Statistical data coverage by thematic area, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Thematic area	Coverage	Indicators reported	Principal gaps
Structural business statistics (SBS)	Partial	Enterprises, employment and value added by size class (2019-2023); SME share in merchandise exports (2019-2024)	Enterprise demography ratios; women-owned enterprises; high-growth firms and gazelles
Entrepreneurial learning and women’s entrepreneurship (Dimension 1)	Partial	Data submitted by the RSIS only: share of majority female-owned businesses (2022-2023); female self‑employment rate (2021‑2024); share of women graduating in STEM tertiary and vocational education and training (VET) fields (2022-2024); share of female university graduates (2022-2024)	No state-level (BHAS) or Federation entity (FZS) data; VET work‑based learning; women chief executive officers; intellectual property registrations by women; government contracts and financing to female-owned enterprises; state-funded SME trainings
Bankruptcy and second chance (Dimension 2)	Limited	Questionnaire not returned	All indicators absent
Public procurement (Dimension 5b)	Partial	SME share in total value of public contracts (2019‑2024); SME participation rate in tenders (2019‑2024); share and value of contracts awarded to foreign operators (2019-2024) – state-level data from the Public Procurement Agency	Payment delays from public authorities; e-procurement participation; green and social criteria in procurement; SME complaint filing and resolution rates
Access to finance (Dimension 6)	Limited	Population with bank accounts (2021, single-year observation only)	Outstanding business loans and SME share; interest rates; collateral; loan applications and rejections; credit guarantee schemes; government loans; private equity and venture capital; leasing, factoring, crowdfunding; fintech; green finance
Enterprise skills and innovation (Dimensions 8a and 8b)	Moderate	Long-term unemployment and over-qualification rates (2021‑2023, state-level via the BHAS); social enterprises and co-operatives (2019-2024, Federation entity via the FZS); SME product and process innovation rates (CIS round 2020, state‑level); GERD and BERD (2019‑2024); BERD performed by SMEs (2019‑2023); direct government funding for research and development (2019‑2024)	Job vacancy rate; SME training incidence; collaborative innovation; tax incentives for business R&D; intellectual property filing and enforcement by SMEs; entity-level innovation data beyond CIS 2020
Green economy (Dimension 9)	Limited	Partial CO₂ emissions and energy consumption data	All SME-specific indicators absent: public support for green production, resource efficiency, circularity and renewable energy; environmental management systems; ecolabels and green products; disaster risk preparedness and insurance; environmental economy value added not reported in usable form
Internationalisation (Dimension 10)	Moderate	SME share in total goods exports (2019-2024); average export value per exporting SME (2019‑2024); total SME export value (2019‑2024); export growth rate (2019-2024); partial export composition – state-level data supplemented by entity-level submissions from the FZS and the RSIS	SME services export share; government expenditure on export support; share of SMEs integrated into global value chains; complete sector composition
Digital transformation (Dimension 11)	Moderate	E-commerce sales and value by enterprise size (2019‑2024); share of enterprises with a website (2019‑2024); ICT training provision (2019‑2024, with gaps); ICT security measures, documents and incidents (2022, 2024); artificial intelligence adoption (2020, 2023-2024); big data, robotics, 3D printing, Internet of Things (single-year snapshots) – state‑level data; Republika Srpska supplementary single-year data (2024)	Digital intensity level (two-year snapshot only); business software adoption (two-year snapshot); digital payment acceptance; public support for digitalisation; most technology-adoption indicators are single-year

Notes: BHAS: Agency for Statistics of Bosnia and Herzegovina; FZS: Federal Institute of Statistics of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina; RSIS: Republika Srpska Institute of Statistics; CIS: Community Innovation Survey; GERD: gross domestic expenditure on research and development; BERD: business expenditure on research and development.

Coverage ratings reflect data submitted through OECD statistical questionnaires by state-level counterpart institutions and entity-level statistical institutes. “Substantial” denotes that a majority of indicators were reported with multi-year series. “Moderate” indicates that core indicators are available but important sub-indicators are missing or reported as single-year snapshots only. “Partial” means fewer than half of the indicators were provided with meaningful coverage. “Limited” applies where less than one-quarter of indicators were provided or data are restricted to single‑year estimates. Ratings reflect data as received; some gaps may be addressable through alternative economy-level or international sources.

The combination of moderate coverage in innovation, internationalisation and digital transformation provides a basis for assessing several dimensions of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s SME policy environment. However, the near total absence of data on bankruptcy proceedings, access to finance and the green economy combined with a largely empty general statistics module and the lack of a dedicated business demography framework at any institutional level significantly constrains cross-cutting analysis. The fragmented nature of data sourcing across state and entity levels – with the RSIS, the FZS and the BHAS each covering different dimensions and no single respondent providing comprehensive economy-level coverage – points to a systemic co-ordination challenge that extends beyond individual data gaps.