Romania records the highest overcrowding rate
In 2025, Romania has the highest overcrowding rate in the dataset, with 40.4% of the population living in overcrowded housing.
Long-term trends • Living conditions
Overcrowding rate in Europe
How many people live in overcrowded housing
Overcrowding is an important indicator of housing quality and living conditions. This page tracks the overcrowding rate across European countries from 2010 to 2025. The indicator measures the share of people living in dwellings that do not provide enough rooms for the household size and composition.
The time series shows how overcrowded housing changed over time: which countries remained structurally high, which improved strongly, and where housing space conditions became more constrained. The latest map and table provide a clear snapshot of the most recent year.
Explore the data
Key insights
Overcrowding remains concentrated in Eastern Europe
Romania, Latvia, Bulgaria, Croatia and Poland record the highest latest-year values, although several of these countries improved substantially since 2010.
Some countries remain consistently low
Cyprus, the Netherlands, Malta, Ireland and Belgium show the lowest overcrowding rates in 2025, all below 7% of the population.
Key comparisons
Selected highlights from the overcrowding rate dataset, 2010–2025.
Extended analysis
1) Overcrowding captures housing space, not housing costs
The overcrowding rate measures the share of people living in dwellings that are too small for the household size and composition. This makes it different from housing affordability indicators: a country may have relatively low housing costs but still have a high share of people living in overcrowded homes.
In practical terms, a higher value means that a larger share of the population lacks sufficient living space according to the statistical definition used in the dataset.
2) The 2025 snapshot shows a wide gap between countries
In the latest year, the highest overcrowding rates were recorded in Romania (40.4%), Latvia (38.9%), Bulgaria (32.5%), Croatia (31.8%) and Poland (30.9%).
At the other end of the ranking, the lowest values were recorded in Cyprus (2.2%), the Netherlands (4.1%), Malta (4.7%), Ireland (5.4%) and Belgium (6.6%). The gap between the highest and lowest values therefore remains very large.
3) Several countries improved strongly since 2010
The largest decline between 2010 and 2025 was recorded in Hungary, where the overcrowding rate fell from 47.2% to 14.6%. Other major declines were observed in Slovenia (-24.4 percentage points), Estonia (-21.8), Lithuania (-17.7) and Latvia (-16.8).
These changes show that overcrowding can decline substantially over time, especially in countries that started the period with very high levels. However, some of these countries still remain above the European middle of the distribution in the latest year.
4) Increases were smaller, but still visible in some countries
The largest increase between 2010 and 2025 was recorded in Germany (+4.6 percentage points), followed by Spain (+4.5), Finland (+3.4), Greece (+2.8) and Denmark (+2.6).
These increases are much smaller than the largest declines, but they show that overcrowding is not only a legacy issue in lower-income countries. Housing space pressure can also rise in wealthier economies, especially when population growth, housing supply and household formation patterns move out of balance.
5) Overcrowding should be read together with other housing indicators
Overcrowding measures whether people have enough space at home, but it does not show whether housing is affordable. A country can have low overcrowding and high housing cost pressure, or high overcrowding and relatively low housing cost overburden.
This is why the indicator is best interpreted alongside housing affordability, poverty rate, income inequality and average salary. Together, these indicators provide a more complete picture of living conditions and housing-related pressure.
How to read this indicator
The overcrowding rate measures the percentage of people living in overcrowded dwellings. It is based on the number of rooms available to the household and the household's size and composition. Higher values indicate a larger share of the population living with insufficient housing space. The indicator does not measure housing costs, housing quality, location or affordability. Iceland and Liechtenstein are not shown because comparable data were not available in the dataset used here. Data for Switzerland are currently available up to 2024.