121.3 million EU citizens cannot afford a week’s holiday, Italy tops the list

Brussels – Long holidays are increasingly a memory. For one in four Europeans, it is not economically sustainable, and 27% of the EU population say they cannot even enjoy a week away from home, according to data that Eurostat published today (14 July), which sees Italy leading the ranking of the new poor. 

The European Statistical Institute offers percentage-based data, showing the share of the population that is officially and explicitly in difficulty, but the picture shown this way only helps to a certain extent in understanding the full scale of the issue. Thus, cross-referencing the data with the European Union’s population, what emerges is that 121.3 million men and women, 27 percent of the over 499 million Europeans, cannot pay for a week’s holiday. In this context, the all-Italian figure stands out. At the end of 2024, 31.4 percent of Italians, still above the EU average figure, declared that they could not leave home for seven days, which translates into more than 18.5 million people in difficulty. The good news is that the situation is improving, as the numbers four years ago were higher.

Italy’s figure is the highest of all. In Germany, the long holiday is not possible for 17.3 million people, in Spain, it is impossible for 16.2 million citizens, and in France, just over 15 million men and women of all ages stay at home. In all cases, these are citizens, both working and non-working, and the Eurostat figure should not be confused with
working poverty, or those who, even though they work, do not earn enough to be able to take extended holidays.