Lithuania and Latvia are highest in 2025
In 2025, Lithuania records the highest poverty rate in the dataset at 22.6%, followed by Latvia at 22.0%.
Long-term trends • Living conditions
Poverty Rate in Europe
Relative poverty, income thresholds and living conditions
Poverty is not only about the level of national income, but also about how income is distributed within each country. This page tracks the at-risk-of-poverty rate across EU and EFTA countries from 2005 to 2025. The indicator measures the share of people whose equivalised disposable income is below 60% of the national median income.
The time series shows how relative poverty changed across Europe over two decades. Some countries have kept the share of people at risk of poverty comparatively low, while others remain structurally high. The latest map and table provide a clear snapshot of where poverty risk is currently lowest and highest.
Explore the data
Key insights
Czechia remains the lowest
Czechia records the lowest 2025 poverty rate at 9.6%, followed by Belgium, Norway and Denmark.
Long-term paths differ sharply
Poland and Ireland recorded the largest declines since 2005, while Sweden recorded the strongest long-term increase.
Key comparisons
Selected highlights from the Eurostat at-risk-of-poverty rate dataset, 2005–2025.
Extended analysis
1) Poverty rate measures relative income position
The poverty rate used here measures the share of people whose equivalised disposable income is below 60% of the national median income. This makes the indicator a measure of relative poverty, not absolute poverty.
Because the threshold is calculated separately for each country, the indicator is useful for comparing income distribution and social risk within countries. It does not directly compare the absolute purchasing power of poor households between countries.
2) The 2025 snapshot shows large differences across Europe
In the latest year, the highest poverty rates are recorded in Lithuania (22.6%), Latvia (22.0%) and Bulgaria (21.2%). These countries stand clearly above the lowest values in the dataset.
At the other end of the ranking, Czechia records the lowest value at 9.6%, followed by Belgium (10.9%), Norway (11.3%) and Denmark (11.8%). The gap between the highest and lowest values remains substantial.
3) Some countries reduced poverty risk substantially
The largest long-term decline was recorded in Poland, where the poverty rate fell from 20.5% in 2005 to 13.2% in 2025. Ireland also recorded a strong decrease, from 19.7% to 13.0%.
These declines show that poverty risk can fall significantly over time, especially when income growth, labour market conditions and social transfers reduce the share of people below the national poverty threshold.
4) Sweden recorded the strongest increase
Not all countries improved over the full period. The strongest increase was recorded in Sweden, where the poverty rate rose from 9.5% in 2005 to 15.6% in 2025. Germany also increased from 12.2% to 16.1%.
These increases do not necessarily mean that living standards fell in absolute terms. Because the indicator is relative to the national median income, it can rise when lower-income households fall behind the middle of the income distribution.
How to read this indicator
The poverty rate measures the share of people whose equivalised disposable income is below 60% of the national median income. Higher values indicate a larger proportion of the population at risk of poverty. The indicator is based on median equivalised income and is expressed as a percentage of the population. Liechtenstein is not shown because comparable data were not available in the dataset used here. Data for Iceland and Switzerland are currently available up to 2022. Data for Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania and Switzerland are available from 2010 onward.