Statistical Briefs

Surveys on Informal Enterprises: An Overview and Measurement Issues

By Gayatri Koolwal on August 27, 2026

• While international momentum to improve survey data on enterprises is growing, significant data gaps persist on the numbers, operations and productivity of informal, nano (single-person) enterprises in national cross-country survey programmes.
• Enterprise surveys typically do not fully identify informal, nano enterprises; nor do they have adequate information on earnings and costs, working environments and constraints to expanding operations for these enterprises.
• Case studies from India and Ghana compare area‑based, city‑level enterprise surveys with concurrent national survey programmes that include enterprise‑level data. The case studies show that certain sampling approaches in area-based surveys lead to undercounts of informal, nano enterprises, including home-based and mobile enterprises – as compared to sampling approaches that incorporate a household listing of enterprises.

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