Destatis is an autonomous federal higher authority for which the Federal Ministry of the Interior carries administrative responsibility. The Federal Statistical Office is independent and not subject to any directions regarding the specific matters of statistical work, the methodological and technical preparation and production of statistics.

Destatis is the leading provider of high-quality statistical information on Germany and provides the statistical information required for the development of an informed opinion and the decision making processes in a democratic society. Its work is based on the principles of neutrality, objectivity and scientific independence as well as data confidentiality regarding the micro data placed at its disposal.

Destatis is one of the largest national statistical offices in the European Union. The German statistical system comprises Destatis and 14 statistical offices of the German federal states (Länder). Destatis is in charge of the conceptual and methodological development, the collection, processing and dissemination of all official statistics on Germany. The 14 state offices of the 16 federal states collect, process and disseminate statistics on the state level according to the methods developed by Destatis which are in full accordance with the EU standards. In this connection, Destatis ensures that federal statistics are produced at the state level without overlaps, based on uniform methods, and in a timely manner. Destatis is in charge of the following statistical subject matters: statistical methods and survey design, economic statistics including business registers, agricultural statistics, environmental statistics, population statistics, social statistics, national accounts, foreign trade statistics, fiscal statistics, and statistics on federal and EU elections. Destatis is one of the leading statistical offices in the European Union and ranks consistently high in EU-wide benchmarking exercises for timeliness and accuracy of statistical results.

Destatis has been working successfully in the framework of EU statistical co-operation programmes in Central and Eastern Europe since 1992. German statisticians are active in all Eurostat working groups and most methodological task forces and, thus, play an important role in the development of EU statistical standards and methods. This expertise has been utilized successfully in many EU and World Bank co-operation projects. Since 2002, Destatis as a lead institution of EU MS consortia has successfully implemented ten EU Twinning projects in the field of official statistics (Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Latvia, Macedonia, Poland and Slovakia). Furthermore, since 2007, Destatis led the implementation of three large-scale World Bank-funded Twinning projects with Tajikistan, Mongolia and Kazakhstan.