Businesses in Scotland: 2025

Ownership (registered businesses only)

This publication classifies registered private sector businesses according to ownership. They can be either ‘UK owned - Scotland based’, ‘UK owned - Rest of the UK (RUK) based’ or ‘Abroad-owned’.

Businesses with their ultimate base outside Scotland are either RUK based or Abroad-owned. As at March 2025, these businesses represented 3.6% of businesses. They also accounted for 35.9% of employment and 54.6% of turnover.

Between March 2024 and March 2025, the number of Abroad-owned businesses increased from 3,530 to 3,665. Abroad-owned businesses operating in Scotland have outnumbered RUK based businesses since 2019. There were 2,570 RUK based businesses as at March 2025. Abroad-owned businesses also provided more Scottish jobs than RUK based businesses (Figure 5).

Figure 5: Abroad-owned businesses provided more Scottish jobs than RUK based businesses as at March 2025.

Private sector jobs in Scotland, by business ownership, 2010 to 2025.

Source: Businesses in Scotland 2025 from the Scottish Government.  For Figure 5 data, see table 3.

As stated before, 35.9% of private sector employment was in businesses with their ultimate base outside Scotland. We can break this down further. 14.9% of Scottish private sector employment was in businesses with their ultimate base in the RUK. 21.0% of Scottish private sector employment was in Abroad-owned businesses. The share of employment in Abroad-owned businesses varies by industry sector. For example, 43.2% of ‘Information and communication’ employment was in Abroad-owned businesses. In comparison, 4.3% of ‘Real estate activities’ employment was in Abroad-owned businesses.

Figure 6: As at March 2025, 43.2% of ‘Information and communication’ employment was in Abroad-owned businesses.

Share of employment by ownership and industry sector, as at March 2025.

Source: Businesses in Scotland 2025 from the Scottish Government.  For Figure 6 data, see table 3.

As at March 2025, there were 1,455 EU Abroad-owned businesses operating in Scotland. These businesses accounted for 143,500 jobs and generated a turnover of over £50 billion. This was 39.5% of all turnover from Abroad-owned registered businesses in Scotland.

We can also look at individual countries. USA-owned businesses accounted for the highest share of Scotland’s Abroad-owned businesses, employment and turnover. As at March 2025, there were 765 USA-owned businesses operating in Scotland. These businesses accounted for 116,800 jobs and generated a turnover of almost £40 billion. This equates to 28.9% of all employment and 31.2% of all turnover from Abroad-owned registered businesses in Scotland.