The population for the AES 2010 financial year is 445,215 units, consisting of:

• 302,235 (67.8 percent) sourced from IR10 information
• 18,394 (4.1 percent) sourced from the postal survey
• 3,166 (0.7 percent) sourced from other Statistics NZ surveys
• 482 units (0.1 percent) sourced from Ministry of Economic Development data
• 120,938 (27.2 percent) non-sample units.

In the AES 2010, 18,394 postal survey unit responses are weighted to represent the 120,938 non-sample units. The corporate response rate required for the postal collection is set at 85 percent of the industry's goods and services tax (GST) sales. In 2010 this response rate was 89 percent, compared with 91 percent in 2009.