The Statistics of Affiliates of Spanish Companies Abroad (FILEXT) has as a principal objective to provide information on an annual basis about the main variables that determine the structure and activity of the subsidiaries abroad, which are ultimately controlled by Spanish parent companies.

It considers the following sectors: industrial, construction, trade and other non-financial market services. At the same time, the variables are presented broken down by activity, size and country or geographical area of the affiliate company.

The results of these statistics are prepared using administrative information from the Register of Foreign Investment of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Enterprise as a basis. This Ministry supplies primary data to the INE by virtue of a collaboration agreement between both organisms. The INE also has a collaboration agreement with the Tax Agency, through which it receives and uses form 231 of the Country-by-Country Information Declaration to complement the previous information. Likewise, the European Register of Groups and the Structural Statistics on Companies act as a source for calculating the necessary raising factors.