Bank of Canada business sentiment intelligence (quarterly)

Name: Bank of Canada business sentiment intelligence (quarterly)
Creator: Bank of Canada
License: https://www.bankofcanada.ca/terms/
Keywords: canada, sentiment, quarterly, macroeconomics, central-bank, inflation, signals

Commercial use OKFresh

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Quarterly Canadian business sentiment intelligence from the Bank of Canada Business Outlook Survey (keyless Valet web service): a quarter x indicator long panel of balances of opinion on sales, investment, hiring, capacity pressures, wage and price expectations, the inflation-expectations distribution, double-weighted magnitude balances, and the official BOS activity/price composite indicators — with quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year momentum in balance points, 10-year percentile ranks, 10-year record-high/low flags, plus quarter-level intelligence: a documented 0-100 BOS sentiment score, a 0-100 price-pressure score, their activity-price gap (the stagflationary-divergence gauge), and sentiment momentum. 1997Q3 onward. Caveats: the BOS indicator (PC1) is re-estimated every quarter so its whole history is revised with each release; the past-sales balance was discontinued by the Bank after 2022Q4 and is excluded. Bank of Canada website content may be freely reused with attribution (commercial_use=yes); source: Bank of Canada.

Source: Bank of Canada
Rows: 2,523
Columns: 20
Source cadence: Quarterly
Last refreshed: Sep 27, 2026
Theme: economy

Column	Type	Description
quarter	string	Reference quarter, YYYY-QN. The panel starts 1997Q3 (survey launch); the latest quarter is the latest published BOS release. Join key with indicator_code. (unit: quarter)
country_code	string	ISO alpha-3 country code (CAN for every row). (unit: ISO 3166-1 alpha-3)
indicator_code	string	Stable machine key for the indicator (e.g. futuresales, credit_conditions, infl_expect_above2, bos_indicator). Join key with quarter.
indicator_label	string	Human-readable indicator name.
indicator_family	string	Indicator family: activity, hiring, capacity, prices, inflation_expectations, or composite.
indicator_question	string	The BOS survey question (or derivation rule) behind the indicator.
value	float	Published value in the indicator's native unit: balance-of-opinion points for balances, % of firms for shares, double-weighted balance (-200..+200) for magnitude indicators, standardized units for the three official composites. Only published (quarter, indicator) cells appear — nothing is interpolated. (unit: native unit (see unit))
unit	string	Native unit of value: 'balance of opinion (pp)', '% of firms', 'double-weighted balance (-200..+200)', or 'standardized units'.
qoq_change	float	Quarter-over-quarter change of value, in the indicator's native units. Null at each indicator's launch quarter — never interpolated. (unit: native units)
yoy_change	float	Change of value vs 4 quarters earlier, in the indicator's native units. Null where the 4-quarter lag is unpublished. (unit: native units)
pctile_10y	float	Percentile of value within its trailing 40-quarter window (inclusive), minimum 20 observations: 100*(rank-1)/(n-1), average ranks, ascending — a high percentile means a hot reading for that indicator. Null before the 20-observation gate. (unit: percentile)
record_high_10y_flag	integer	1 when value equals the trailing-40-quarter maximum (inclusive, minimum 20 observations). (unit: binary)
record_low_10y_flag	integer	1 when value equals the trailing-40-quarter minimum (inclusive, minimum 20 observations). (unit: binary)
balance_sign	string	Sign of value for signed units (balances and standardized composites): positive / negative / zero. Empty for share-type indicators.
bos_sentiment_score	float	Documented 0-100 business-sentiment composite: 100 * min-max over full history of (0.5PC1 + 0.5activity indicator), falling back to PC1 alone before the activity indicator's 2017Q1 launch. Null before 2003Q3 (PC1 launch). Higher = stronger business conditions. (unit: 0-100 score)
price_pressure_score	float	Documented 0-100 price-pressure composite: 100 * min-max over full history of the official BOS price indicator. Null before 2016Q1 (indicator launch). (unit: 0-100 score)
activity_price_gap	float	price_pressure_score minus bos_sentiment_score. Positive means price pressure is running hotter than business activity — the stagflationary-divergence gauge the Bank highlighted in the Q2 2026 release. (unit: score points)
sentiment_score_qoq_pts	float	Quarter-over-quarter change of bos_sentiment_score, in score points. (unit: score points)
valet_series_id	string	Valet series id behind the indicator (e.g. FUTURESALES, PC1), or DERIVED:<code> for the two derived indicators.
row_hash	string	Deterministic 16-hex row hash of indicator_code + quarter (idempotency).

First 10 sample rows — a preview, not the complete dataset.

quarter	country_code	indicator_code	indicator_label	indicator_family	indicator_question	value	unit	qoq_change	yoy_change	pctile_10y	balance_sign	bos_sentiment_score	price_pressure_score	activity_price_gap	sentiment_score_qoq_pts	valet_series_id	row_hash
1997-Q3	CAN	wage_growth	Wage growth expectations	prices	Over the next 12 months, are increases in labour costs expected to be higher, lower or about the same rate as over the past 12 months?	22	balance of opinion (pp)	—	—	—	positive	—	—	—	—	COSTS	f34367ee1e3f916f
1997-Q4	CAN	wage_growth	Wage growth expectations	prices	Over the next 12 months, are increases in labour costs expected to be higher, lower or about the same rate as over the past 12 months?	35	balance of opinion (pp)	13	—	—	positive	—	—	—	—	COSTS	f334da4c21e90d70
1998-Q1	CAN	wage_growth	Wage growth expectations	prices	Over the next 12 months, are increases in labour costs expected to be higher, lower or about the same rate as over the past 12 months?	25	balance of opinion (pp)	-10	—	—	positive	—	—	—	—	COSTS	7b1b742ef9eec9ab
1998-Q2	CAN	wage_growth	Wage growth expectations	prices	Over the next 12 months, are increases in labour costs expected to be higher, lower or about the same rate as over the past 12 months?	25	balance of opinion (pp)	0	—	—	positive	—	—	—	—	COSTS	eb7f23a2a6214bc7
1998-Q3	CAN	futuresales	Future sales growth	activity	Over the next 12 months, the rate of increase in your firm's sales volume (compared with the past 12 months) is expected to be…	-19	balance of opinion (pp)	—	—	—	negative	—	—	—	—	FUTURESALES	6bf005f34d3a2f8b
1998-Q3	CAN	investment_machinery	Investment in machinery and equipment	activity	Over the next 12 months, your firm's investment spending on M&E (compared with the past 12 months) is expected to be…	-2	balance of opinion (pp)	—	—	—	negative	—	—	—	—	INVESTMACHEQUIP	a80d01d3ce29b44c
1998-Q3	CAN	employment	Future employment level	hiring	Over the next 12 months, your firm's level of employment is expected to be…	-10	balance of opinion (pp)	—	—	—	negative	—	—	—	—	EMPLOY	79706331fc612c42
1998-Q3	CAN	wage_growth	Wage growth expectations	prices	Over the next 12 months, are increases in labour costs expected to be higher, lower or about the same rate as over the past 12 months?	18	balance of opinion (pp)	-7	-4	—	positive	—	—	—	—	COSTS	cf8f18be476978ee
1998-Q3	CAN	input_prices	Input price inflation	prices	Over the next 12 months, are prices of products/services purchased expected to increase at a greater, lesser, or the same rate as over the past year?	-2	balance of opinion (pp)	—	—	—	negative	—	—	—	—	INPUTS	63b6faf41878da42
1998-Q3	CAN	output_prices	Output price inflation	prices	Over the next 12 months, are prices of products/services sold expected to increase at a greater, lesser, or the same rate as over the past year?	-28	balance of opinion (pp)	—	—	—	negative	—	—	—	—	OUTPUTS	b9f26e0b1d09fa51

Point any LLM at the metadata endpoint — the documentation above is machine-readable too (JSON-LD + Croissant).

cURL

curl "https://datazimuts.com/v1/datasets/boc_bos_sentiment_intel/boc_bos_sentiment_quarterly" | jq '{title, rows, columns_count, license}'

Python

import requests

ds = requests.get("https://datazimuts.com/v1/datasets/boc_bos_sentiment_intel/boc_bos_sentiment_quarterly").json()
print(ds["title"], ds["rows"], "rows")

# Sample rows for an LLM context window
for row in ds.get("sample_rows", [])[:5]:
    print(row)

API endpoint: https://datazimuts.com/v1/datasets/boc_bos_sentiment_intel/boc_bos_sentiment_quarterly

Tip: fetch /llms.txt for the full machine-readable catalog.

Cite this snapshot

Pinned to snapshot 20260927T173829Z-f7935287c430 and its content hash, so readers get exactly the data you used.

APA

Bank of Canada. (2026). Bank of Canada business sentiment intelligence (quarterly) [Data set, snapshot 20260927T173829Z-f7935287c430, sha256 f7935287c430]. Datazimuts. Retrieved 2026-09-27, from https://datazimuts.com/en/datasets/boc_bos_sentiment_intel/boc_bos_sentiment_quarterly?snapshot=20260927T173829Z-f7935287c430

BibTeX

@misc{dz_boc_bos_sentiment_intel_boc_bos_sentimen_f7935287,
  title        = {{Bank of Canada business sentiment intelligence (quarterly)}},
  author       = {{Bank of Canada}},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Datazimuts},
  howpublished = {\url{https://datazimuts.com/en/datasets/boc_bos_sentiment_intel/boc_bos_sentiment_quarterly?snapshot=20260927T173829Z-f7935287c430}},
  note         = {Snapshot 20260927T173829Z-f7935287c430, sha256 f7935287c4303143c3ddb6de793f196e2ba7c469fdad9d5d6f91270bf1e06bc5; accessed 2026-09-27}
}

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Bank of Canada business sentiment intelligence (quarterly)

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