What information does the Bureau of Economic Analysis publish on services trade by enterprise characteristics (STEC)?

BEA updated its services trade by enterprise characteristics (STEC) statistics in its May 2024 Survey of Current Business article “A Profile of U.S. Services Traders” and in STEC tables 6.1–6.4 in BEA's International Services Interactive Data Application ¹. These statistics provide insight on characteristics such as industry and firm ownership type of U.S. firms that trade services. For U.S. services traders that are multinational enterprises (MNEs), a fuller set of characteristics is presented, including employment size class and trade intensity. The extra detail for MNEs comes from a link between BEA’s services surveys, which include extensive detail on transactions, and BEA’s AMNE surveys, which include details on firm operations.

This FAQ, which supersedes the FAQ “What information does the Bureau of Economic Analysis publish on the characteristics of international services traders?” released in 2019, contains detailed responses to the following questions about how the statistics are presented and compiled:

Which service types (“selected services”) are included in the current STEC statistics?
How does BEA classify the types of firms that trade services for its STEC statistics?
How are nonsurvey-based trade and unallocated reporting attributed to specific companies for BEA’s STEC statistics?
How are firms classified by industry for BEA’s STEC statistics?
How are the BEA surveys of international trade in services linked to the surveys of MNEs for BEA’s STEC statistics?
How does BEA reconcile the difference in timeliness of the international services data and the MNE data in its STEC statistics?
How do BEA’s current STEC statistics compare to previously published statistics in this series?
Where can data users find statistics on the characteristics of firms that trade goods?

Which service types (“selected services”) are included in the current STEC statistics?

BEA’s STEC statistics are available for the period 2006–2022. These statistics are limited to a subset of international services trade statistics that is based on data collected by BEA, specifically data on trade in the following “selected” service types:

Construction
Insurance services
Financial services
Charges for the use of intellectual property n.i.e.
Telecommunications, computer, and information services
Other business services
Personal, cultural, and recreational services

BEA’s trade in services statistics for service types that are out of scope for its STEC statistics are mainly based on source data other than BEA-administered surveys, with the exception of certain transport and maintenance services, and thus cannot be linked at the firm level to BEA direct investment surveys. The service types that are out-of-scope are travel (for all purposes including education), which includes transactions by individual persons; government goods and services, which includes military transactions; and transport and maintenance and repair services, including those traded among businesses. The selected services that are in-scope for the STEC statistics include most international services traded between businesses and account for the majority of total U.S. services exports and imports. (Back to top)

How does BEA classify the types of firms that trade services by firm ownership type for its STEC statistics?

Firms are classified by firm ownership type in these statistics according to whether the U.S. unit is part of an MNE and, if so, who ultimately owns the MNE. This classification system differs somewhat from the one used for most other BEA statistics on MNEs.

MNEs are enterprise groups in which an entity resident in one country has a direct investment in a business enterprise in another country. Direct investment—that is, control of 10 percent of the voting ownership of a business in another country—is distinguished from other types of international investment by the implied degree of control or influence of the investor. BEA statistics on MNEs cover:²

U.S. multinational enterprises, which consist of U.S. parents and their foreign affiliates. The U.S. parent is the U.S. entity that has a direct investment interest in a foreign business enterprise. Foreign affiliates are foreign business enterprises that are owned or controlled at least 10 percent, directly or indirectly, by the U.S. parent.
U.S. affiliates of foreign multinational enterprises. U.S. affiliates are U.S. business enterprises that are owned or controlled at least 10 percent, directly or indirectly, by a foreign resident, which is called a foreign parent.

Most BEA statistics cover these groups separately. For example, BEA’s previous STEC statistics, published in 2012 and in 2019, focused on the U.S. units of each of these groups of MNEs: U.S. parents and U.S. affiliates. Specifically, they covered 1) U.S. parents and 2) majority-owned U.S. affiliates (MOUSAs).³ A shortcoming of this approach is that the two groups partly overlap—that is, some firms are both U.S. parents and MOUSAs—making it difficult under this format to disaggregate totals for MNEs by firm-ownership type and present cross-tabulations by firm ownership type.⁴ This shortcoming has been addressed in the latest (2024) update of the STEC statistics. In this release, BEA introduced a new firm ownership-type classification based on whether a firm is part of an MNE and whether ownership of the MNE is ultimately in the United States or abroad. Specifically, all firms are classified into one of the following three categories, as presented in Chart I and corresponding Table I.

U.S. units of ultimately U.S.-owned MNEs (“U.S.-owned MNEs”) are indicated by blue circles in chart I. This group is composed of (A) U.S. parents that are not also U.S. affiliates, (D) U.S. parents that are also minority-owned U.S. affiliates, and MOUSAs with a U.S. ultimate beneficial owner (UBO), including both MOUSAs that are U.S. parents (B) and those that are not U.S. parents (E).⁵
U.S. units of ultimately foreign-owned MNEs (“foreign-owned MNEs”) are indicated by orange circles in chart I. This group is composed of MOUSAs with a foreign UBO, including those that are U.S. parents (C) and those that are not U.S. parents (F).
U.S. business enterprises that are neither U.S. parents nor MOUSAs (“non-MNEs” in the context of BEA’s STEC statistics) are indicated by teal circles in chart I. This group is composed of (G) U.S. business enterprises that are minority-owned (by at least 10 percent and at most 50 percent) by a foreign resident and (H) U.S. business enterprises that are not in a direct investment relationship with a foreign resident.⁶

BEA’s firm ownership-type classification for its STEC statistics addresses the overlap between U.S. parents and MOUSAs, thereby yielding a fully coherent disaggregation by firm ownership type, which allows a streamlined presentation of the statistics over the several dimensions used to describe services traders. The new presentation also emphasizes whether ownership or control is ultimately held in the United States and brings the statistics into closer alignment with similar statistics on service traders published by other countries.⁷ There is a high degree of alignment between foreign-owned MNEs in the current presentation and MOUSAs in the prior presentation. Likewise, there is a significant alignment between U.S.-owned MNEs in the current presentation and U.S. parents in the prior presentation.

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How are nonsurvey-based trade and unallocated reporting attributed to specific companies for BEA’s STEC statistics?

The selected services estimates included in BEA’s services trade by enterprise characteristics (STEC) statistics are composed of services transactions that are primarily collected on surveys administered by BEA and therefore can be attributed to specific companies. However, within the service types included in selected services, source data for certain transactions are not survey based. Additionally, a small portion of survey data is unallocated, reflecting either reporting by companies with low-value transactions that only report total values of services exports and imports and are exempt from providing detail by service type, affiliation, and trading partner country or financial services transactions for 2006, which were collected at a lower level of detail under an earlier version of the BEA survey system.

Nonsurvey-based trade

Nonsurvey-based trade includes financial brokerage services related to debt securities and market-making services that come from external data sources; financial intermediation services indirectly measured (FISIM); data for computer services imports from Canada; and trade unions transactions between the United States and Canada, which are provided through a data-exchange agreement with Statistics Canada, without any accompanying company information. In addition, aggregate-level adjustments are made to direct insurance and reinsurance transactions in the estimation of insurance services to better reflect long-term economic conditions and economic accounting concepts. Nonsurvey-based trade are proportionally assigned to individual companies that report on BEA surveys or otherwise assigned characteristics of the U.S. exporter or importer. It was not feasible to leave these transactions out of the selected services included in BEA’s STEC statistics, because doing so would risk the disclosure of information of individual companies contributing to the remaining data. Therefore, for each of these cases, the following steps are taken to allocate the transactions to individual companies that did report on BEA surveys or to categorize the transaction by industry or firm ownership type.

For market-making services and for financial brokerage services related to debt securities, which are both included in the category brokerage and market-making services, transactions are assigned proportionally to companies that reported brokerage services on the BE-185 Quarterly Survey of Financial Services Transactions Between U.S. Financial Services Providers and Foreign Persons, according to the value of their transactions in those brokerage services that are collected on the BE-185.
For FISIM exports, data from the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) Call Reports are linked to BEA trade in services and direct investment survey reporters to allocate aggregate FISIM based on an entity’s proportion of non-U.S. loans or deposits as reported on the Call Reports by the firms that matched to BEA surveys. For FISIM imports, aggregate imports are allocated to industries using shares underlying BEA’s GDP by Industry statistics; FISIM importers are classified as non-MNEs.⁸
For computer services imports from Canada, trade values are distributed proportionally to the companies that reported such imports from Canada on BEA surveys.⁹
Trade union transactions from Canada, which measure dues paid by unions in Canada to their U.S.-based parent organizations and financial benefits paid by U.S. trade unions to their Canadian affiliates for 2006–2013, are classified in “other industries” (which covers labor unions) and as non-MNE transactions.¹⁰
Education services exports from tuition expenditures of foreign students studying remotely at U.S. higher education institutions from abroad and education services imports from tuition expenditures of U.S. students studying remotely at foreign institutions from the United States are classified in “other industries” (which covers both educational services and transactions allocated to households); both exporters and importers are classified as non-MNEs.
For direct insurance and reinsurance, the adjustments to smooth premiums and losses and estimated premium supplements were assigned proportionally to all companies according to the premiums they reported on the BE-45 Quarterly Survey of Insurance Transactions by U.S. Insurance Companies with Foreign Persons.

Unallocated reporting

Beginning with the 2020 annual update, the universe estimation process for unallocated reporting, which arises for small transactors that fall below the level required to report geographic, affiliation, and service type detail, was improved. Prior to 2020, such exempt reporting was aggregated under a single generic company ID and allocated proportionally across service types, affiliation, and countries based on reporting by other companies. This process severed the connection between the transactions and the reporting companies’ IDs. The current method, introduced during the 2020 annual update, retains the link between the reporter and its transactions and creates a more realistic “dummy report” for each exempt company reflecting the service types the company has indicated that it trades and a more realistic affiliation and country distribution based on past reporting or reporting by similar companies.
Financial services transactions for 2006 are based on reporting on the defunct BE-85 Quarterly Survey of Financial Services Transactions Between U.S. Financial Services Providers and Unaffiliated Foreign Persons for unaffiliated trade and on BEA direct investment surveys for affiliated trade. These data are not directly used for compiling STEC statistics because the data collection system for the BE-85 survey is distinct from the current collection system and the direct investment surveys do not reflect the same level of detail in published statistics.¹¹ Instead, their corresponding value of financial services trade for 2006 was proportionally allocated to companies that reported on the BE-180 Benchmark and BE-185 Quarterly Survey of Financial Services Transactions Between U.S. Financial Services Providers and Foreign Persons in 2007, according to their 2007 transactions. (Back to top)

How are firms classified by industry for BEA’s STEC statistics?

U.S. services traders are classified under the industry that best describes the major activity of the consolidated U.S. enterprise. The fully consolidated U.S. enterprise includes (i) the U.S. corporation whose voting securities are not owned more than 50 percent by another U.S. corporation and, proceeding down each ownership chain from that U.S. corporation, (ii) any U.S. corporation whose voting securities are more than 50 percent owned by the U.S. corporation above it.¹² Entities classified in a particular industry could have activities in a variety of other industries. For example, a firm classified in manufacturing may have secondary activities in information. BEA’s services trade by enterprise characteristics (STEC) statistics feature linked data from BEA’s trade in services and multinational enterprises (MNEs) surveys. For MNEs, the industry reported on BEA’s activities of multinational enterprises (AMNE) surveys is typically used. For the most recent 1–2 years covered by the international trade in services data for which the data from the AMNE surveys are not yet available, the industry reported on BEA’s quarterly direct investment surveys or otherwise maintained in BEA’s quarterly direct investment database is used, as of the fourth quarter of the reference year.^13,14 For non-MNEs, the industry reported on BEA’s trade in services surveys is used, as of the fourth quarter of the reference year. (Back to top)

How are the BEA surveys of international trade in services linked to the surveys of MNEs for BEA’s STEC statistics?

BEA conducts three major sets of benchmark and quarterly surveys on international services and transactions in intellectual property—the BE-120 Benchmark and BE-125 Quarterly Survey of Transactions in Selected Services and Intellectual Property with Foreign Persons, the BE-140 Benchmark and BE-45 Survey of Insurance Transactions by U.S. Insurance Companies with Foreign Persons, and the BE-180 Benchmark and BE-185 Quarterly Survey of Financial Services Transactions Between U.S. Financial Services Providers and Foreign Persons—as well as surveys of U.S. MNEs—the BE-10 Benchmark, BE-11 Annual, and BE-577 Quarterly Surveys of U.S. Direct Investment Abroad—and U.S. affiliates of foreign MNEs—the BE-12 Benchmark, BE-15 Annual, and the BE-605 Quarterly Surveys of Foreign Direct Investment in the United States. The data collection systems for each of the 3 sets of services and 2 sets of MNE surveys are distinct. Therefore, data on trade in services may only be combined with the richer detail available on the MNE surveys via a bridge that links reporters from one survey to reporters on another survey.

The bridge between the services surveys and the direct investment surveys is constructed for each year based on common identifying variables such as Employer Identification Number (EIN), name, email address, mailing address, and phone number as well as information on links from past years. Data linking can be a very time-intensive process, but over time BEA has introduced more advanced text mining techniques, fuzzy linking methods, web scraping locational information, and automated verification of matched entities to fully utilize the available information on reporters. Although careful manual review is still a part of the linking process, the use of automated methods has greatly reduced the time required to generate and validate a set of matches. Furthermore, these linking efforts have been bolstered by internal improvements to BEA’s data systems that expanded and centralized firm identification information and bolstered the quality of links maintained between U.S. MNEs and U.S. affiliates of foreign MNEs. (Back to top)

How does BEA reconcile the difference in timeliness of the international services data and the MNE data in its STEC statistics?

BEA’s annual trade in services statistics are first released in July of the year after the reference year, while statistics on the activities of multinational enterprises (AMNE) are typically first released in August or November of the second year after the reference year.¹⁵ Therefore, when BEA’s STEC statistics are prepared for the most recent reference year available in the trade in services statistics, the AMNE statistics for that reference year will not be available for another 1-2 years.¹⁶ For these years, BEA’s information on the universe of MNEs enables the development of a list of MNEs that can be linked to the trade in services data, allowing BEA to assign firm ownership types to these units. For MNEs that are in the universe in prior years, their ownership type is carried forward through the most recent reference year. New MNE reporters on BEA quarterly surveys of U.S. direct investment abroad that are U.S. parents are classified as U.S.-owned, under the assumption that they are not also a majority-owned U.S. affiliate with a non-U.S. ultimate beneficial owner (UBO). New MNE reporters on BEA’s quarterly surveys of foreign direct investment in the United States that are U.S. affiliates are assumed to be foreign-owned unless their UBO is in the United States.¹⁷

The industry assignment used in BEA’s STEC statistics prioritizes the industry reported on the direct investment surveys for linked firms that are identified as MNEs. For the reference years not covered by the most recent annual or benchmark surveys of MNEs, the industry is based on information maintained in BEA’s quarterly direct investment database.¹⁸

Unfortunately, some information featured in BEA’s STEC statistics and BEA’s Profile of Services Traders Survey of Current Business articles, such as employment size class and trade intensity, can only be calculated using information from BEA’s annual surveys on the activities of MNEs, and are thus not available for the most recent 1-2 reference years. As such, the statistics on these dimensions of service traders are available with a lag relative to the STEC statistics that feature industry and firm ownership type dimensions. (Back to top)

How do BEA’s current STEC statistics compare to previously published statistics in this series?

In May 2024, BEA updated its services trade by enterprise characteristics (STEC) statistics to incorporate several improvements for 2006–2022. The most recent previous presentation of this kind was published in 2019 and covered 2008–2017; the first release of these statistics was in 2012 and covered data for 2008.¹⁹ Previously, these data were presented as “characteristics of firms that trade services,” but in 2024 their title was updated to “services trade by enterprise characteristics (STEC)” to better align with terminology used by the emerging international statistical guidance and key trading partners.²⁰ The value of trade in selected services presented in the current statistics is conceptually consistent with that presented in the 2019 article but the value has been revised. Revisions to statistics for previously published years reflect the incorporation of updated source data as well as methodological improvements introduced in the 2020 annual update. In addition to revised data, BEA has introduced some presentation changes to further expand the detail available in its STEC statistics.

Changes arising from the 2020 annual update²¹

In the 2020 annual update of the ITAs and the corresponding update to the annual trade in services statistics, two new major categories composed of service types previously included as subcategories of other major categories were introduced: construction and personal, cultural, and recreational services. These services are in-scope for selected services. For consistency with the trade in services statistics, these new service categories are included in service type categories of the current release of BEA’s STEC statistics. This new detail does not affect the selected services totals in the statistics.

The international services data that underlie selected services included in BEA’s STEC statistics incorporated various changes in coverage and classification introduced in the 2020 annual update. These changes included new measures of implicitly charged financial services, improved classification of transactions in intellectual property, and improved universe estimation procedures. BEA introduced new measures of market-making services, which reflect services provided by financial institutions for buying and selling securities that are not explicitly charged, and financial intermediation services indirectly measured (FISIM), which reflect services provided by banks in their deposit-taking and lending activities that are not explicitly charged. BEA also improved classifications of service categories related to transactions in intellectual property to better align the type of right being conveyed in addition to the type of intellectual property being traded. Under the updated treatment, outright sales and purchases of intellectual property can now be distinguished from conveyances of rights to use, reproduce, and distribute. Some transactions that were previously included in charges for the use of intellectual property were reclassified to computer services (in the major category telecommunications, computer, and information services); research and development services; and audiovisual services (in the major category personal, cultural, recreational services). Finally, BEA introduced new processing methods for its survey-based data on construction; insurance services; financial services; charges for the use of intellectual property; telecommunications, computer, and information services; other business services; and personal, cultural, and recreational services. The new method increased the consistency of estimates across time periods and substantially improved its procedures for estimating unreported data.

Other presentational changes to expand detail

In 2024, BEA introduced two new interactive tables to its STEC statistics: table 6.1, which presents statistics on trade in selected services by industry, and table 6.4, which presents statistics on trade in selected services by employment size class and by service type. Tables originally numbered as 6.1–6.2 were renumbered as tables 6.2–6.3 to permit the introduction of the new table 6.1.

A detailed description of additional updates to existing tables and of the new tables appears below.

Table 6.1, U.S. Trade in Selected Services, by Industry (New in 2024) features trade in selected services by major industry and—within the 4 major industry categories accounting for the largest shares of services exports and imports—by 18 subindustries.
Table 6.2, U.S. Trade in Selected Services, by Service Type and by Major Industry (Updated in 2024; these statistics were previously largely featured in numbered table 6.1) features expanded detail and an updated format to reflect updates to the trade in services major categories introduced during BEA’s 2020 annual update of the International Economic Accounts. Compared with the table originally numbered 6.1, the columns and rows have been transposed and the balance on total selected services by industry has been added.
Table 6.3, U.S. Trade in Selected Services, by Service Type and by Firm Ownership Type (Updated in 2024; these statistics were previously largely featured in numbered table 6.2) features trade in selected services by the new firm ownership-type classifications introduced in this article and the updated services categories introduced in the 2020 annual update of the International Economic Accounts. Compared with the table originally numbered 6.2, the balance on total selected services by firm ownership type has been added and exports and imports of information and communications technology (ICT) and of potentially ICT-enabled services have been dropped.²²
Table 6.4, MNEs’ U.S. Trade in Selected Services, by Service Type and by Employment Size Class, 2006–2021 (New in 2024) features trade in selected services cross-classified by 6 employment size classes and 11 service types. (Back to top)

Where can data users find statistics on the characteristics of firms that trade goods?

BEA’s services trade by enterprise characteristics (STEC) statistics provide insight on U.S. firms that trade services. The U.S. Census Bureau publishes an annual article, “A Profile of U.S. Importing and Exporting Companies,” that features comparable statistics for trade in goods. The Census publication features information for enterprises on the Census Business Register that have been linked to export or import transaction records. The BEA STEC statistics and Census Profile statistics feature many of the same characteristics, such as industry, firm size class, and number of trading partners, although there are some differences in classification for the overlapping characteristics. (Back to top)

¹ Previously these data were presented as “characteristics of firms that trade services,” but in 2024 their title was updated to “services trade by enterprise characteristics (STEC)” to better align with terminology used in emerging international statistical guidance and key trading partners.

² For more detailed information on concepts and definitions used in BEA’s International Economic Accounts, see U.S. International Economic Accounts: Concepts and Methods.

³ To be considered majority-owned, more than 50 percent of the U.S. affiliate’s voting equity (if legally incorporated) or an equivalent interest (if unincorporated) is owned, directly or indirectly, by its foreign parent(s).

⁴ The previous firm ownership type classification limited BEA’s ability to present statistics cross-tabulated by firm ownership type and other characteristics of services traders, such as employment size class, that summed to total trade because it would expose the overlapping firms to potential disclosure risks. Therefore, for the firms identified as MNEs through the services-to-MNE survey bridge, BEA presented statistics for certain characteristics separately for the two MNE groups. The current classification has enabled BEA to present statistics for which the firm ownership types sum to total trade and to thereby expand its presentation of cross-tabulations by firm ownership type. Basing statistics on a larger number of firms, without implicitly revealing values for overlapping firms, has also enabled BEA to expand the level of detail presented for other firm characteristics that are based on information collected on BEA’s MNE surveys (for example, firm size class).

⁵ The UBO is the entity that ultimately owns or controls and thus ultimately derives the benefits and assumes the risks from owning or controlling an affiliate.

⁶ Although minority-owned U.S. affiliates are in a direct investment relationship with a foreign parent, they are not included in the statistics for U.S. affiliates presented in these statistics because they are typically subject to a smaller degree of influence and control by their owner. Therefore, a UBO’s residency is not a factor in classifying minority-owned U.S. affiliates. This treatment follows the approach used in BEA’s AMNE publications, which feature measures for MOUSAs, and likewise, for majority-owned foreign affiliates (MOFAs), in order to emphasize those affiliates that are unambiguously under control of their direct investors. In the standard publications, and in the classification presented here, no distinction is made between U.S. parents on the basis of whether they have majority-ownership over any affiliates.

⁷ In particular, BEA’s new firm ownership-type classification is in line with that used by Eurostat, as described in its Compilers Guide for statistics on Services Trade by Enterprise Characteristics (STEC).

⁸ While it may be more accurate to assume that all FISIM importers are MNEs, compilation of BEA’s STEC statistics requires a further disaggregation for the firm ownership-type dimension, indicating whether the MNE is a U.S.-owned MNE or a foreign-owned MNE, and there is no source for such information.

⁹ BEA collects this information, as it does for imports of computer services from all other countries, on its quarterly services surveys, but its published values of computer services imports from Canada are based on the quarterly value provided by Statistics Canada because BEA views Statistics Canada data as having more complete coverage.

¹⁰ The cross-border groups of trade unions are not classified as MNEs because the Canadian affiliates are not business enterprises.

¹¹ Company-level responses are estimated for 2006 instead of using BE-85 microdata directly because of uncertainty regarding the comparability of the BE-85 microdata with that from more recent surveys of international financial services transactions and the extensive processing that would be required to integrate these surveys for just one year of data. The direct investment surveys collected no geographic detail nor detailed service type information. Furthermore, the coverage of reporting of services on the direct investment surveys was found to be incomplete in comparison to the results from the new survey that collected affiliated and unaffiliated data together.

¹² The fully consolidated domestic U.S. enterprise excludes foreign branches and other foreign affiliates.

¹³ For foreign direct investment in the United States, this information is collected on the BE-605 survey. For U.S. direct investment abroad, industry information is updated based on preliminary filings of the AMNE surveys or identified in public information, such as annual financial reports.

¹⁴ See the question on this page “How does BEA reconcile the difference in timeliness of the international services data and the MNE data in its STEC statistics?” for more information on how BEA accounts for the differences in availability of trade in services and direct investment survey data.

¹⁵ The MNE statistics on U.S. affiliates and on U.S. parents and their foreign affiliates are published in August and November; the specific release order can vary from year to year. In some years, the U.S. affiliates statistics are released first (in August), and the U.S. parents and foreign affiliates statistics are released second (in November); in other years, the order is reversed.

¹⁶ Whether the MNE data lags 1 or 2 years depends on the timing of the release of BEA’s STEC statistics. For example, at the time of publication of the Survey of Current Business article “A Profile of U.S. Services Traders” in May 2024, the most recent year of published international services statistics was 2022 and the most recent year of published MNE statistics was 2021. For releases of STEC statistics that occur between July and August, both sets of published MNE statistics would lag the International Services statistics by two years. For releases between September and October, one set of AMNE statistics would lag by one year and the other would lag by two years.

¹⁷ This implicitly assumes that these affiliates are majority-owned, which the vast majority turn out to be.

¹⁸ See the question on this page “How are firms classified by industry?” for more information.

¹⁹ See Kevin Barefoot and Jennifer Koncz-Bruner, “A Profile of U.S. Exporters and Importers of Services,” Survey of Current Business 92 (June 2012).

²⁰ In particular, both EuroStat and Statistics Canada publish similar statistics under the title STEC.

²¹ For more details on the 2020 annual update, see Telles, Rudy, Nick Martinez, and Ted Peck, “Annual Update of the U.S. International Transactions Accounts,” Survey of Current Business, (July, 2020).

²² ICT services refers to services that facilitate information processing and communication, and potentially ICT-enabled services is an aggregate measure of services that can predominantly be delivered remotely over ICT networks. In 2022, 95 percent of selected services exports and 94 percent of imports were classified as potentially ICT-enabled. BEA dropped these statistics from the presentation of trade in selected services by service type and by firm ownership type because the overlap of ICT and potentially ICT-enabled services with certain major service type categories introduced into BEA’s standard presentation during the 2020 annual update would require BEA to suppress a substantial portion of the ICT and potentially ICT-enabled statistics to avoid the disclosure of data of individual companies. ICT services are composed of BEA’s published statistics on telecommunications services, computer services, and charges for the use of intellectual property associated with computer software. Potentially ICT-enabled services are composed of BEA’s published statistics on international trade in six major service types: insurance services; financial services; charges for the use of intellectual property; telecommunications, computer, and information services; certain other services included in other business services (research and development services; professional and management consulting services; architectural, engineering, scientific, and other technical services; and trade-related services), and certain other services included in personal, cultural, and recreational services (audiovisual services and other personal, cultural, and recreational services). Potentially ICT-enabled services include ICT services.