Brussels – In the second half of 2025, gas bills paid by European households averaged 12.28 euros per 100 kilowatt-hours (kWh), marking a 7.4 per cent increase compared to the 11.43 euros recorded in the first half of last year. The price of electricity, on the other hand, followed a more stable trend, with the average price in the last six months of 2025 at €28.96, a slight 0.5 per cent increase from the €28.79 paid by households in the first half of the year. These figures were revealed by Eurostat, the European Union’s statistical office, in its regular half-yearly report on prices of gas and electricity across the Old Continent.
Gas prices: price rises for households and reductions for businesses
The €12.28 paid in the second half of 2025 represents the second-highest gas price recorded in the last ten years, surpassed only by the €12.44 per 100 kWh recorded in the second half of 2024. Compared to two years ago, however, in 2025 the rise in bills between the first and second half of the year has fallen significantly (a phenomenon which Eurostat nevertheless describes as “normal” due to the increased use of heating systems during the winter months): in 2024, price growth stood at 12.6 per cent quarter-on-quarter, a figure approximately 5 percentage points lower than that of the previous year.
Today’s report also highlights “significant disparities” in the data for individual Member States. In absolute terms, the highest bills were paid by citizens in Sweden, with an average tariff of €20.92 per 100 kWh, followed by those in the Netherlands (€17.19) and Italy (€14.81). The lowest prices, however, were recorded on the Eastern flank and in the Balkans: the “top 3” are Hungary (€3.40), Croatia (€5.43) and Romania (€5.66). The ranking, however, changes when one takes into account each country’s average income and the impact of a given price level on different levels of wealth. Applying the principle of purchasing power parity (PPP), Sweden remains at the top of the ranking of countries with the most expensive gas (€17.16), followed by Portugal (€17.04), with Italy (€15.48) still behind. In contrast, those paying the least were the Hungarians (€4.67), the Luxembourgers (€6.75), and the Slovaks (€7.58).
As for changes compared with the second half of 2024, energy bills rose in 11 EU countries, fell in 10 and remained stable in 2. The largest increases were seen in Luxembourg (+21.7 per cent), Croatia (+19.1 per cent), and Lithuania (+14.8 per cent), while the most significant reductions were recorded in the Czech Republic (-9.8 per cent), Italy (-6.6 per cent) and Latvia (-6.1 per cent). These differences depend not only on the cost of gas itself but also on the level of taxes and other charges applied to bills under each country’s tax regime. It is no coincidence that two of the countries with the highest tariffs also have the highest percentages of taxes on the final price: the Netherlands (51.8 per cent compared to an EU average of 31 per cent) and Sweden (35.9 per cent), with Denmark lying between them (48.9 per cent). More ‘lenient’ taxation is found, on the other hand, in Croatia (4.8 per cent), Greece (8.1 per cent) and Belgium (16.5 per cent).
Finally, Eurostat analyses the proportion of bills paid by so-called non-domestic users, i.e., businesses and other large consumers whose annual gas consumption ranges from 10,000 to 100,000 gigajoules. In this market segment, gas prices followed an opposite trend during 2025: in the second half of the year, the average price was €6.05 per 100 kWh, a decrease of 8.3 per cent compared to the first half of the year (€6.60).
Looking at the data for individual countries, energy bills paid by businesses rose in only four countries (with the largest increases recorded in Lithuania, the Netherlands, and Romania), while they fell in the remaining 16 countries for which data is available (with the Czech Republic and Hungary leading the way).
Electricity prices: greater stability
For the electricity market, 2025 was a year characterised by greater stability. The average price of household electricity bills in the second half of the year (€28.96 per kWh) is in line with both the figure recorded in the first half of the year (€28.79) and that recorded in the last six months of 2024 (€28.97). Taking a broader view, however, Eurostat highlights that the cost of electricity continues to be “significantly higher” than in the period prior to the 2022 energy crisis: a figure that demonstrates the extent to which the consequences of the Russia-Ukraine conflict continue to weigh on EU households’ bills.
Once again, these general conclusions do not apply uniformly to all Member States. Looking at absolute figures, the most expensive electricity was consumed in Ireland (€40.42 per 100 MWh), Germany (€38.69), and Belgium (€34.99), while the cheapest tariffs were recorded in Hungary (€10.82), Malta (€12.82), and Bulgaria (€13.55). Taking into account the SPP, however, Malta (€14.09), Hungary (€15.10), and Finland (€18.77) recorded the lowest prices; while the highest bills were paid in Romania (€49.52), the Czech Republic (€38.65), and Poland (€37.15). Romania is also the top country in terms of year-on-year percentage change in price with a 58.6 per cent increase, followed by Austria (+34.3 per cent) and Ireland (+32.7 per cent). The largest decreases, on the other hand, were seen in Cyprus (-14.7 per cent), France (-12.5 per cent), and Denmark (-11.9 per cent).
Equally variable was the proportion of taxes in the final price of electricity. At the top of the list of countries with the “strictest” tax regimes are Denmark (49 per cent), Poland (just over 40 per cent) and Sweden (around 30 per cent), while in Luxembourg and the Netherlands the level of taxes is actually lower than that of subsidies, resulting in negative percentages (respectively -6.3 and -5.2 per cent).
Finally, the figures for non-domestic customers (annual electricity consumption between 500 and 2,000 MWh): The average price in the second half of 2025 was €18.37 per 100 MWh, down from €19.03 in the first six months (-3.7 per cent) and €19.41 in the second half of 2024 (-5.4 per cent). The largest price decreases were recorded in Slovenia (-16.6 per cent), Luxembourg (-15.8 per cent), and France (-14.1 per cent). By contrast, companies operating in Romania (+15.4 per cent), Sweden (+9.4 per cent), and Bulgaria (+6.8 per cent) saw their bills rise.
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
