Inside the EU Transparency Register: Companies, NGOs and Associations

The European advocacy landscape brings together corporate interests, organised civil society and professional networks. The EU Transparency Register offers a useful starting point for understanding that landscape.

Three substantial groups

The 2025 annual report records 16,474 registrants at year-end. Its categories include 4,922 companies and groups; 4,444 non-governmental organisations, platforms, networks and similar bodies; and 2,911 trade and business associations.

IGAPA calculation: dividing each category by the year-end total gives approximately 29.9%, 27.0% and 17.7%, respectively. Percentages are rounded to one decimal place.

What the categories reveal

A company and a business association are separate kinds of registrant. Combining them into one headline would answer a different question from comparing the report’s own categories. The same care applies to the broad NGO category.

These are registration counts. They do not establish shares of expenditure, meeting access or policy success. A small organisation and a large group each contribute one entry to this calculation.

The register’s international reach

The same report places 16% of registrants’ head offices in Belgium and 12% in Germany. The United Kingdom and United States each account for 5%. These categories describe head-office location, not the citizenship of individual lobbyists.

IGAPA perspective

For a stakeholder-mapping exercise, use this overview to decide where to look next. Select a policy issue, examine the relevant organisations, read their stated objectives and check links between associations and members. Keep the reasoning behind each proposed connection.

A credible map should make clear which conclusions follow directly from a public entry and which remain working hypotheses. The figures above describe the end of 2025; they are not a live count for November 2026.

Primary source: EU Transparency Register Annual Report 2025, Statistics section