Public funds, institutions and enterprises (FEU) are created by hiving off tasks from the public budgets, by business start-ups, or by acquisition of interest. They play a major role regarding both the services of general interest and the support of economic activities in Germany. The FEU of municipalities/associations of municipalities accounted for the largest share (87.9%) of the 20,033 reporting units using commercial accounting that were recorded in the annual balance sheet statistics for 2021. The remaining FEU represented majority interests of the Länder (9.8%), the Federation (1,4%) and the social security funds (0.9%).
In the reference year 2021, the FEU achieved total proceeds of about 738 billion euros, while their expenditure amounted to 724 billion euros. The addition of fixed assets (intangible and tangible fixed assets, financial assets) - comparable to gross fixed capital formation – amounted to 125 billion euros.
In 2021, the public funds, institutions and enterprises operated mainly as energy supply enterprises (2,795 reporting units) and achieved 45.5% of the turnover of all FEU. Enterprises of health care and social services achieved 11.6% of the turnover, followed by transportation and storage enterprises (8.7%).