The new Italian classification of economic activities ATECO 2025:a focus on individual entrepreneurs

Abstract

During the recent review of the Italian classification of economic activities — that led to the release of Ateco 2025 — discussions with stakeholders highlighted concerns regarding the clarity of the classification when it comes to describing the activities of individual entrepreneurs. Individual entrepreneurs often find that the contents of Ateco 2025 do not reflect their activities because of the difficulty of separating the concept of ‘what one is’ (status) from ‘what one does’. Drawing on descriptive examples based on user inquiries and registry data, this study confirms that the application of the Ateco classification to the economic activities of individual entrepreneurs is significantly affected by coding errors, which largely depend on the user's level of knowledge and expertise in applying the classification. It emerged that, in such cases, ordinary users — including the entrepreneurs themselves, accountants, and labour consultants — often confuse the statistical concept of ‘occupation’ with that of ‘economic activity’. This situation undermines the quality of statistics and requires action from the custodians of the classification to enhance its clarity.