Worldwide Activities of U.S. Multinational Enterprises

Comparability of Foreign Affiliate Statistics with Foreign Host Economy Statistics

Value-added statistics on MOFAs by country can be compared with statistics on gross domestic product (GDP) in private industries for their respective foreign host countries. GDP by industry statistics for foreign countries are available from the United Nations.³

Comparability of U.S. MNE Statistics on Trade in Goods with Total U.S. Trade in Goods

Trade in goods statistics for U.S. MNEs can be compared with total U.S. trade in goods to gauge the share of total U.S. trade in goods accounted for by U.S. MNEs. As global firms, MNEs export and import both final and intermediate goods.

The concepts and definitions underlying the data collected on trade in goods on the BE–11 survey form are nearly identical to those used for the data on total U.S. trade in goods compiled by the Census Bureau. However, there are some measurement differences between the MNE trade data and the total U.S. trade in goods. One difference is in how trade in goods is reported. The trade data from the BE–11 survey reflect responses based on company records, while the Census Bureau data are compiled from export and import documents filed by shippers with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection on individual transactions.⁴ The timing, valuation, origin or destination, shipper, and product involved in a given transaction may be recorded differently in company records than on these export and import documents.

Trade between U.S. parents and their foreign affiliates is referred to as intra-MNE trade. Trade between U.S. parent companies and foreigners other than their own foreign affiliates, and trade between foreign affiliates and U.S. residents other than their own parents, are referred to as MNE trade with others. U.S. MNE-associated trade in goods consists of all U.S. exports and U.S. imports of goods that involve U.S. parents or their foreign affiliates and is the sum of intra-MNE trade and MNE trade with others.

Overlap of Outward and Inward AMNE Statistics

Along with outward AMNE statistics, BEA also publishes inward AMNE statistics—that is, statistics on the activities of U.S. affiliates of foreign MNEs—based on BEA surveys of foreign direct investment in the United States. These two sets of statistics partly overlap because some U.S. companies are both foreign-owned and own foreign affiliates; these U.S companies are included in both the inward and outward statistics. Like the outward AMNE statistics, the inward AMNE statistics are published annually and are based on benchmark surveys that are conducted once every 5 years and on annual surveys, which are conducted in the intervening years. The most recent benchmark outward AMNE statistics were for 2014, and the most recent benchmark inward AMNE statistics were for 2012.⁵

Data Availability

Information on the outward AMNE statistics is available on BEA’s website. Detailed outward AMNE statistics for 1983–2018 are available in BEA’s interactive tables.

Staff Contacts

For additional information about the preliminary 2018 statistics, email internationalaccounts@bea.gov.

• The statistics are on a fiscal year basis. An affiliate’s fiscal year is defined as the financial reporting year that ended in that calendar year. Unless otherwise specified, all balances are as of the close of fiscal year 2018.
• Detail may not add to totals because of rounding.
• An asterisk “(*)” indicates a nonzero value that rounds to zero.
• A “(D)” indicates that the data have been suppressed to avoid the disclosure of the data of individual companies. For employment cells that have been suppressed, a letter in the data cell indicates an employment size range that is listed below the tables.
• A “U.S. parent” is the person, resident in the United States, that owns or controls 10 percent or more of the voting securities of an incorporated foreign business enterprise or an equivalent interest in an unincorporated foreign business enterprise. “Person” is broadly defined to include any individual, branch, partnership, associated group, association, estate, trust, corporation or other organization (whether or not organized under the laws of any state), or any government entity. The U.S. parent is the fully consolidated U.S. domestic business enterprise that consists of (1) the U.S. business enterprise whose voting securities are not owned more than 50 percent by another U.S. business enterprise and (2) proceeding down each ownership chain from that U.S. business enterprise, any U.S. business enterprise (including Foreign Sales Corporations in the United States) whose voting securities are more than 50 percent owned by the U.S. business enterprise above it. A U.S. parent comprises the domestic (U.S.) operations of a U.S. multinational enterprise.
• A “foreign affiliate” is a foreign business enterprise in which there is U.S. direct investment, that is, in which a U.S. person directly or indirectly owns or controls 10 percent of the voting securities or the equivalent. Foreign affiliates comprise the foreign operations of a U.S. multinational enterprise over which the U.S. parent is presumed to have a degree of managerial influence.
• A “majority-owned foreign affiliate” is a foreign affiliate in which the combined direct and indirect ownership interest of all U.S. parents exceeds 50 percent.
• The designation “by country” in a table title indicates that data are disaggregated by country of foreign affiliate.
• Some tables present statistics for a group of countries or industries rather than for each country or each industry. These country or industry groups are often denoted “Other” in the tables (“Other industries” is a special case). Two other terms are also used: “Miscellaneous manufacturing” and “Miscellaneous services.” For example, most world regions in the tables have a version of “Other.” For the constituents of the “Other” country groups, see table I.A1 or II.A1. For the constituents of the “Other” industry groups (as well as those of “Other industries,” “Miscellaneous manufacturing,” and “Miscellaneous services”) see table I.A2 or II.A2. See also BEA’s “BEA’s Guide to Industry Classifications for International Surveys, 2012.”
• The European Union (28 countries) comprises Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
• OPEC is the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. In 2018, its members were Algeria, Angola, Congo (Brazzaville) Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela.
• The “United Kingdom Islands, Caribbean” consists of the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Montserrat, and the Turks and Caicos Islands.
• All footnotes follow the last table.

Part I. All Affiliates and All Parents

Table I.A 1

1. The number of affiliates includes only the affiliates that meet the stated threshold; all other data are for all affiliates.

Table I.A 2

1. The number of affiliates or parents includes only the entities that meet the stated threshold; all other data are for all affiliates or for all parents.

Table I.O 1

1. Goods supplied are generally defined as sales of economic outputs that are tangible. For sales in wholesale and retail trade, goods supplied include only the value of goods resold; they consist of reported sales of goods less BEA’s estimate of the value of the distributive services provided by selling, or arranging for the sale of, goods (this estimate is added to reported sales of services to calculate services supplied).

2. Services supplied are generally defined as sales of economic outputs that are intangible. For sales in insurance, services supplied consist of reported premiums less BEA’s estimates of the premiums set aside for expected or “normal” losses plus a measure of premium supplements, which represent income earned on funds that insurers hold on policyholders’ behalf. For sales in banking, services supplied include not only the explicit fees and commissions reported as sales but also BEA’s estimate of the value of implicit services provided by banks. (The values subtracted from and added to sales of services in insurance and banking are added to and subtracted from, respectively, reported values of other income.) For sales in wholesale and retail trade, services supplied include BEA’s estimate of the value of the distributive services provided by selling, or arranging for the sales of, goods (this estimate is subtracted from reported sales of goods to calculate goods supplied). For industries other than insurance, banking, and wholesale and retail trade, services supplied consist of reported sales of services.

3. “Other” consists largely of investment income that is included in “sales or gross operating revenues” in the income statement. In finance and insurance, affiliates include investment income in sales because it is generated by a primary activity of the company. For sales in insurance, “other” consists of reported investment income less BEA’s estimate of premium supplements, which represent income earned on funds that insurers hold on policyholders’ behalf plus BEA’s estimate of premiums set aside for the settlement of expected or “normal” losses. For sales in banking, “other” consists of the investment income remaining after BEA’s estimate of the value of implicit services provided by banks is excluded. (The values subtracted from and added to other sales in insurance and banking are added to and subtracted from, respectively, reported sales of services to calculate services supplied). For most affiliates in industries other than finance and insurance, investment income earned on secondary activities in finance and insurance is considered an incidental source of revenue; this income is therefore included in the income statement in a separate “other income” category, and is not included in the affiliates’ sales or in this column.

Table I.O 2

1. For industry classification, each U.S. parent was required to disaggregate its sales by four-digit International Surveys Industry code; the U.S. parent was then classified in the industry in which its sales were largest (for details, see “Worldwide Activities of U.S. Multinational Enterprises: Revised Results From the 2014 Benchmark Survey”). When sales are disaggregated by the industry of the U.S. parent, total sales of a given U.S. parent are shown in the industry in which the parent was classified. When sales are disaggregated by industry of sales, they are distributed among all the industries in which the U.S. parent reported sales; that is, sales associated with each industry of sales are shown in that industry regardless of the U.S. parent’s industry of classification.

Table I.P 1

1. Profit-type return is an economic accounting measure of profits from current production. Unlike net income, it is gross of U.S. income taxes, excludes capital gains and losses and income from equity investments, and reflects certain other adjustments needed to convert profits from a financial accounting basis to an economic accounting basis.

2. Equals monetary interest payments plus imputed interest paid minus monetary interest receipts minus imputed interest received. Imputed interest paid and received, which are measures of the value of services provided by life insurance carriers and financial intermediaries without explicit charge, are estimated.

3. Equals taxes other than income and payroll taxes plus production royalty payments to governments less subsidies received.

4. Capital consumption allowance is used as a proxy for consumption of fixed capital. It consists of book-value depreciation charges reported on BEA’s surveys using financial accounting principles.

5. Consists of gains or losses resulting from the sale or other disposition of assets, changes in the dollar value of parents’ foreign-currency-denominated assets and liabilities that are caused by changes in exchange rates, and all other unusual or nonrecurring gains or losses, including those resulting from the revaluation of assets, whether realized or not.

Tables I.R 1 and I.R 2

1. Covers only U.S. parents in which there is direct investment by a foreign person—that is, U.S. parents that are owned 10 percent or more by a single foreign person. The foreign parent is the foreign person that holds a direct investment interest in the U.S. parent. The foreign parent group consists of (1) the foreign parent of a U.S. parent, (2) any foreign person, proceeding up the foreign parent’s ownership chain, that owns more than 50 percent of the person below it, and (3) any foreign person, proceeding down the ownership chain(s) of each of these members, that is owned more than 50 percent by the foreign person above it.

2. Does not equal the total in column 3, which is derived from data reported on affiliates’ forms, because of differences in timing and valuation and the inclusion of data for affiliates covered on U.S. parents’ forms but exempt from being reported on affiliates’ forms.

Part II. Majority-Owned Foreign Affiliates

Table II.A 1

1. The number of affiliates includes only the affiliates that meet the stated threshold; all other data are for all majority-owned affiliates.

Table II.A 2

1. The number of affiliates or parents includes only the entities that meet the stated threshold; all other data are for all majority-owned affiliates or for all parents of majority-owned affiliates.

Tables II.B 1–2, II.B 3–4, and II.B 11–12

1. Cash is defined broadly to include deposits in financial institutions and other cash items and cash equivalents, such as short-term, highly liquid investments that are both readily convertible to known amounts of cash and so close to their maturity that they present insignificant risk of changes in value because of changes in interest rates.

2. Before allowance of doubtful accounts.

Tables II.D 1, II.D 2, and II.D 11

1. Consists of gains or losses resulting from the sale or other disposition of assets, changes in the dollar value of foreign affiliates’ assets and liabilities denominated in foreign currencies other than the affiliate’s functional currency that are caused by changes in exchange rates, translation gains or losses taken in accordance with the Financial Accounting Standards (FAS) Codification Topic 830: “Foreign Currency Matters” (formerly known as FAS 52), and all other unusual or nonrecurring gains or losses, including those resulting from the revaluation of assets, whether realized or not.

Table II.D 13

1. For industry classification, each foreign affiliate was required to disaggregate its sales by four-digit International Surveys Industry code; the affiliate was then classified in the industry in which its sales were the largest (for details, see “Worldwide Activities of U.S. Multinational Enterprises: Revised Results From the 2014 Benchmark Survey”). When sales are disaggregated by industry of affiliate, total sales of an affiliate are shown in the industry in which the affiliate was classified. When sales are disaggregated by industry of sales, they are distributed among all the industries in which the affiliate reported sales; that is, sales associated with each industry of sales are shown in that industry regardless of the affiliate’s industry of classification.

Table II.E 1

1. Goods and services supplied by an affiliate to persons in the country where the affiliate is located.

2. Goods or services supplied to U.S. parents include only goods or services supplied to the U.S. parent or parents of the supplying foreign affiliate. Goods or services supplied to U.S. parents not affiliated with the supplying foreign affiliate are included in the column for unaffiliated persons.

3. Goods or services supplied to other foreign affiliates include only goods or services supplied to foreign affiliates of the supplying foreign affiliate’s U.S. parent or parents. Goods or services supplied to foreign affiliates of U.S. parents not affiliated with the supplying foreign affiliates are included in the column for unaffiliated persons.

4. Goods supplied are generally defined as sales of economic outputs that are tangible. For sales in wholesale and retail trade, goods supplied include only the value of goods resold; they consist of reported sales of goods less BEA’s estimate of the value of the distributive services provided by selling, or arranging for the sale of, goods (this estimate is added to reported sales of services to calculate services supplied).

5. Services supplied are generally defined as sales of economic outputs that are intangible. For sales in insurance, services supplied consist of reported premiums less BEA’s estimates of the premiums set aside for expected or “normal” losses plus a measure of premium supplements, which represent income earned on funds that insurers hold on policyholders’ behalf. For sales in banking, services supplied include not only the explicit fees and commissions reported as sales but also BEA’s estimate of the value of implicit services provided by banks. (The values subtracted from and added to sales of services in insurance and banking are added to and subtracted from, respectively, reported values of other income.) For sales in wholesale and retail trade, services supplied include BEA’s estimate of the value of the distributive services provided by selling, or arranging for the sales of, goods (this estimate is subtracted from reported sales of goods to calculate goods supplied). For industries other than insurance, banking, and wholesale and retail trade, services supplied consist of reported sales of services.

Tables II.E 2, II.E 3, and II.E 9

1. Goods and services supplied by an affiliate to persons in the country where the affiliate is located.

2. Goods or services supplied to U.S. parents include only goods or services supplied to the U.S. parent or parents of the supplying foreign affiliate. Goods or services supplied to U.S. parents not affiliated with the supplying foreign affiliate are included in the column for unaffiliated persons.

3. Goods or services supplied to other foreign affiliates include only goods or services supplied to foreign affiliates of the supplying foreign affiliate’s U.S. parent or parents. Goods or services supplied to foreign affiliates of U.S. parents not affiliated with the supplying foreign affiliate are included in the column for unaffiliated persons.

Tables II.E 10 and II.E 11

1. Goods supplied are generally defined as sales of economic outputs that are tangible. For sales in wholesale and retail trade, goods supplied include only the value of goods resold; they consist of reported sales of goods less BEA’s estimate of the value of the distributive services provided by selling, or arranging for the sale of, goods (this estimate is added to reported sales of services to calculate services supplied).

2. Goods supplied by an affiliate to persons in the country where the affiliate is located.

3. Goods supplied to U.S. parents includes only goods supplied to the U.S. parent or parents of the supplying foreign affiliate. Goods supplied to U.S. parents not affiliated with the supplying foreign affiliate are included in the column for unaffiliated persons.

4. Goods supplied to other foreign affiliates includes only goods supplied to foreign affiliates of the supplying foreign affiliate’s U.S. parent or parents. Goods supplied to foreign affiliates of U.S. parents not affiliated with the supplying foreign affiliate are included in the column for unaffiliated persons.

Tables II.E 12 and II.E 13

1. Services supplied are generally defined as sales of economic outputs that are intangible. For sales in insurance, services supplied consist of reported premiums less BEA’s estimates of the premiums set aside for expected or “normal” losses plus a measure of premium supplements, which represent income earned on funds that insurers hold on policyholders’ behalf. For sales in banking, services supplied include not only the explicit fees and commissions reported as sales but also BEA’s estimate of the value of implicit services provided by banks. (The values subtracted from and added to sales of services in insurance and banking are added to and subtracted from, respectively, reported values of other income.) For sales in wholesale and retail trade, services supplied include BEA’s estimate of the value of the distributive services provided by selling, or arranging for the sales of, goods (this estimate is subtracted from reported sales of goods to calculate goods supplied). For industries other than insurance, banking, and wholesale and retail trade, services supplied consist of reported sales of services.

2. Services supplied by an affiliate to persons in the country where the affiliate is located.

3. Services supplied to U.S. parents includes only services supplied to the U.S. parent or parents of the supplying foreign affiliate. Services supplied to U.S. parents not affiliated with the supplying foreign affiliate are included in the column for unaffiliated persons.

4. Services supplied to other foreign affiliates includes only services supplied to foreign affiliates of the supplying foreign affiliate’s U.S. parent or parents. Services supplied to foreign affiliates of U.S. parents not affiliated with the supplying foreign affiliate are included in the column for unaffiliated persons.

Tables II.E 15, II.E 16, and II.E 17

1. Services supplied are generally defined as sales of economic outputs that are intangible. For sales in insurance, services supplied consist of reported premiums less BEA’s estimates of the premiums set aside for expected or “normal” losses plus a measure of premium supplements, which represent income earned on funds that insurers hold on policyholders’ behalf. For sales in banking, services supplied include not only the explicit fees and commissions reported as sales but also BEA’s estimate of the value of implicit services provided by banks. (The values subtracted from and added to sales of services in insurance and banking are added to and subtracted from, respectively, reported values of other income.) For sales in wholesale and retail trade, services supplied include BEA’s estimate of the value of the distributive services provided by selling, or arranging for the sales of, goods (this estimate is subtracted from reported sales of goods to calculate goods supplied). For industries other than insurance, banking, and wholesale and retail trade, services supplied consist of reported sales of services.

Tables II.F 1, II.F 2, and II.F 5

1. Profit-type return is an economic accounting measure of profits from current production. Unlike net income, it is gross of foreign income taxes, excludes capital gains and losses and income from equity investments, and reflects certain other adjustments needed to convert profits from a financial accounting basis to an economic accounting basis.

2. Equals monetary interest payments plus imputed interest paid minus monetary interest receipts minus imputed interest received. Imputed interest paid and received, which are measures of the value of services provided by life insurance carriers and financial intermediaries without explicit charge, are estimated.

3. Equals taxes other than income and payroll taxes plus production royalty payments to governments less subsidies received.

4. Capital consumption allowance is used as a proxy for consumption of fixed capital. It consists of book-value depreciation charges reported on BEA’s surveys using financial accounting principles.

Tables II.F 7, II.F 8, and II.F 9

1. Profit-type return is an economic accounting measure of profits from current production. Unlike net income, it is gross of foreign income taxes, excludes capital gains and losses and income from equity investments, and reflects certain other adjustments needed to convert profits from a financial accounting basis to an economic accounting basis.

Part III. U.S.-Headquartered MNEs

Table III.A.1 and III.A.2

1. U.S.-headquartered MNEs are U.S. MNEs that are ultimately owned or controlled by a U.S. person.

2. Foreign-headquartered U.S. MNEs are U.S. MNEs that are ultimately owned or controlled by a foreign person.

3. The number of affiliates includes only the affiliates with total assets, sales, or net income (or loss) greater than $25 million; all other data are for all majority-owned affiliates.

Table III.A.3 and III.A.4

1. U.S.-headquartered MNEs are U.S. MNEs that are ultimately owned or controlled by a U.S. person.

2. The number of affiliates includes only the affiliates that meet the stated threshold; all other data are for all majority-owned affiliates.