SMEs see bureaucracy as by far the greatest risk to competitiveness at their German location. On the basis of the KfW SME Panel, KfW Research has recently conducted the first representative survey of the working time small and medium-sized enterprises spend specifically on bureaucratic processes. Last year, employees on average devoted around seven per cent of their working time to compliance. That amounted to 32 hours per month on average per business. Among half small and medium-sized enterprises, the amount of time expended was 15 hours per month or less. The costs incurred in complying with bureaucratic requirements account for around 3.9% of the annual personnel costs of small and medium-sized enterprises. These do not include further stress factors such as, for example, time-consuming application, planning and approval processes, length of retention periods, disputed interpretations of regulations or psychological costs.

SMEs spend seven per cent of their working time on administrative processes(PDF, 339 KB, accessible)

Press release