Small and Medium Enterprises

Small and Medium Enterprises

Small and medium enterprises (also SMEs, small and medium businesses, SMBs, and variations thereof) are companies whose headcount or turnover falls below certain limits.

The abbreviation SME occurs commonly in the European Union and in international organisations, such as the World Bank, the United Nations and the WTO. The term small and medium-sized businesses or SMBs is predominantly used in the USA.

EU Member States traditionally had their own definition of what constitutes an SME, for example the traditional definition in Germany had a limit of 500 employees, while, for example, in Belgium it could have been 100. But now the EU has started to standardise the concept. Its current definition categorises companies with fewer than 50 employees as "small", and those with fewer than 250 as "medium". By contrast, in the United States, when small business is defined by the number of employees, it often refers to those with less than 100 employees, while medium-sized business often refers to those with less than 500 employees.