Policy paper: National Survey of Businesses: implementation update

In February 2026, the former Department for Business and Trade (DBT) published its response to the public consultation on proposed changes to the National Survey of Registered Businesses (NSRB). The consultation response outlined plans to replace the NSRB with a new survey, the National Survey of Businesses (NSB), while retaining the strengths of the existing survey and addressing user feedback where possible.

The NSB has now been introduced and implementation has progressed. This update provides information on how the commitments made in the consultation response have been reflected in the design and content of the NSB and highlights areas where implementation has differed from the original proposals.

This publication forms part of our commitment to transparency and user engagement and complements information published alongside NSB statistical releases.

Summary of current position against consultation recommendations

Table 1: summary of current position against NSRB consultation recommendations

Methodological changes between the NSRB and NSB

Alongside changes to questionnaire content, there are several methodological differences between the NSRB and NSB.

The NSRB was an annual survey of registered businesses based on a sample drawn from the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR). By contrast, the NSB operates as a quarterly omnibus survey, collecting data across 4 waves each year. This approach provides greater flexibility to respond to emerging evidence needs while also enabling annual reporting for measures that are collected consistently across waves.

The NSB also differs from the NSRB in its sample source and data collection approach. While the NSRB sampled businesses from the IDBR and collected data through telephone interviews, the NSB uses the Market Location business database and a mixed-mode approach combining telephone and online data collection.