Companies are ranked according to the size, their turnover and their independence, by definition, are considered three main categories of business:
- Micro-enterprises – are those enterprises which employ fewer than 10 employees.
- Small Businesses – Are those businesses employing 10 to 49 employees and their annual turnover must be less than 7 million Euro , or their budget does not exceed 5 million.
- Medium Enterprises – I’m condiderate Medium Enterprises, when employing fewer than 250 employees and their turnover is less than EUR 40 million, or that their budget is less than EUR 27 million.
The qualification of Microenterprise, Small or Medium Enterprise Enterprise, you only lose when these thresholds are exceeded over two consecutive actual exercises.
The European Commission has the discretion to modify this recommendation and will review these thresholds generally every 4 years.
These definitions are also important because these bases are used in all Community programs concerned specifically with the Small and Medium Enterprises.
More info here: http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/other/n26001_en.htm