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 (87.7%) of the 20,407 reporting units using commercial accounting that were recorded in the annual balance sheet statistics for 2022. The remaining FEU represented majority interests of the Länder (9.8%), the Federation (1.6%) and the social security funds (0.9%).
In the reference year 2022, the FEU achieved total proceeds of about 1,309 billion euros, while their expenditure amounted to 1,317 billion euros. The addition of fixed assets (intangible and tangible fixed assets, financial assets) - comparable to gross fixed capital formation – amounted to 136 billion euros.
In 2022, the public funds, institutions and enterprises operated mainly as energy supply enterprises (2,868 reporting units) and achieved 45.9% of the turnover of all FEU. Enterprises of wholesale, retail trade, repair of motor vehicles achieved 21.7% of turnover, followed by health care and social services enterprises (6.7%).