Since 2013, annual statistics on foreign direct investment (FDI) are compiled:
-   based on quarterly direct investment (DI) data, such as recorded by the balance of payments (bop) respectively the international investment position (iip) and presented according to the asset/liability principle, in accordance with BPM6 (Bop and iip Manual, 6th edition) ;
-   exhaustively, which means that they also include special purpose entities (SPE’s);
-   according to the extended directional principle (reprocessing from the asset/liability principle, as described in detail in the OECD Benchmark Definition of FDI, 4th edition).

Geographical breakdown of FDI is based on the immediate non-resident counterpart, which is:
-   the country of the immediate direct investor, regarding DI in Luxembourg (Inward FDI);
-   the immediate hosting country of the DI enterprise in the case of DI abroad (Outward FDI).

Breakdown by industry is based on the activity of the DI enterprise, which is the activity of:
-   the resident DI enterprise for DI in Luxembourg (Inward FDI) ;
-   the non-resident DI enterprise (if available) for DI abroad (Outward FDI).