Free market data sources for Europe: what each covers and how to cite it

Which free sources should you check first?

Start with the source whose definitions fit your question, not the one that ranks first in a search engine. Everything below is secondary data: collected by someone else, for their own purposes, so the definition always needs checking against your question.

Eurostat: one definition for every EU country

Eurostat harmonises data collected by national offices, so a figure for Bulgaria and one for the Netherlands measure the same thing in the same way. That makes it the default for screening several countries at once. Its database covers demography, household consumption, prices and purchasing power, digital behaviour of people and companies, structural business statistics by NACE sector and international trade by product code.

Every table has a code, such as isoc_ec_ib20 for internet purchases by individuals or sbs_ovw_act for enterprises by detailed activity. Search by keyword in the data browser, filter the countries, years and units you need, and download the result as a spreadsheet. Write the code down: table names change more often than codes do.

Structural business statistics are an under-used resource. They count enterprises, employment and turnover in narrow sectors, including market research itself: in 2024 Eurostat recorded 591 enterprises in Bulgaria and 5,641 in the Netherlands under NACE M73.2, market research and public opinion polling. Our research industry data page charts these series, and our article on why the Netherlands leads Europe's research industry interprets them.

National statistics offices: the detail Eurostat leaves out

National offices usually publish first and in more depth. NSI in Bulgaria (with its Infostat database), CBS in the Netherlands (StatLine, which also offers an open data interface), Destatis in Germany (the GENESIS-Online database) and the ONS in the United Kingdom break results down by region, municipality, age group or household type, often well beyond what Eurostat republishes. All four publish key tables in English.

The trade-off is comparability. A national series can follow its own method, and the same indicator then gives a very different reading. Dutch consumer confidence is a clear case:

Both series fell over the year, so both say that Dutch households became more cautious. Yet the levels sit about 14 to 15 points apart, because method and seasonal adjustment differ. Quote either one, label which, and never put the two on one chart or switch between them halfway through a report.

World Bank and OECD: economic context and long series

The World Bank's World Development Indicators provide consistent series for almost every country, which helps when a European market is compared with one elsewhere. GDP per capita in current US dollars is the most quoted, but it exaggerates the gap between countries with different price levels.

On these figures, Dutch GDP per head is about 3.6 times Bulgaria's. Eurostat's purchasing power standards (PPS) correct for price differences: for 2024 it puts real expenditure per capita at 53,800 PPS in the Netherlands, 39,700 in the EU and 26,300 in Bulgaria, a ratio of roughly two to one. The years and measures differ, but the lesson holds: for consumer markets, PPS is usually the better guide to what households can afford.

The OECD Data Explorer adds prices, wages, productivity and economic forecasts, with strong comparability across its members. Check that your target country is covered before building a comparison around it, because coverage beyond the membership is patchy.

TED: free data on what the public sector buys

TED, the online version of the Supplement to the Official Journal of the EU, publishes contract notices and award notices from public buyers across the Union, searchable by CPV product code, country and date. For a supplier it shows which authorities buy a category, how contracts are divided into lots and who wins them. Smaller contracts appear on national portals instead, such as the e-procurement platform run by the Public Procurement Agency (AOP) in Bulgaria or TenderNed in the Netherlands.

The same records serve public buyers who need to estimate a contract value or run a preliminary market consultation; our page on public procurement market consultation explains that use.

What free data cannot tell you

Official statistics describe populations and markets, not brands or opinions. Expect gaps in five areas:

• Brand and product detail: market shares, prices of specific products, sales by retailer.
• Attitudes and intentions: why people buy, what they would pay, what would make them switch.
• New categories: activities that have no statistical classification yet.
• Speed: annual surveys appear months after the reference year; Eurostat updated its table on online purchases with 2025 figures in April 2026.
• Niche B2B markets: sector totals can be too broad, or suppressed for confidentiality when only a few firms operate.

Fieldwork exists to fill these gaps. A short survey of the target group answers the attitude questions, and our sample size calculator shows how many respondents you need. To turn official figures into a market estimate, combine them in a top-down model; our explainer on TAM, SAM and SOM walks through the method.

How to cite free market data correctly

A good citation lets a reader find the exact figure again. It has six elements: publisher, dataset title, dataset code, unit, reference period and the date you extracted the data. For example:

• Eurostat, "Internet purchases by individuals (2020 onwards)", isoc_ec_ib20, % of individuals aged 16–74, 2025, extracted 5 November 2026.
• World Bank, World Development Indicators, "GDP per capita (current US$)", NY.GDP.PCAP.CD, 2025, extracted 5 November 2026.

Practical rules:

• Cite the dataset, not the news article that quoted it. Press coverage often drops the definition.
• Record the extraction date. Statistical offices revise figures, and a number checked in spring may change by autumn.
• Keep geography codes. EU27_2020 means the current 27 members; older EU aggregates covered a different set of countries.
• Say whether data is seasonally adjusted, especially for monthly indicators.
• Check the reuse terms. Eurostat and the World Bank allow reuse with attribution; other sources may restrict commercial use.