Brussels – The number of smokers in the European Union continues to fall, but tobacco and alternative products remain a daily habit for millions of people. In 2025, one in six Europeans aged 16 and over consumed cigarettes, e-cigarettes, heated tobacco products or nicotine pouches on a daily basis. This is what appears from the latest figures published by Eurostat, which show a slow but steady decline in consumption compared with three years ago.
In 2025, 16.5 per cent of the European population aged 16 and over reported using tobacco or related products on a daily basis, one percentage point lower than the 17.5 per cent recorded in 2022. This downward trend is evident in most Member States: between 2022 and 2025, the percentage of daily users fell in 17 EU countries. The sharpest declines were recorded in Spain and Luxembourg, where the percentage fell by 2.1 percentage points. In contrast, the trend in Croatia and Lithuania was the opposite, with these countries recording the largest increases, amounting to 2.7 percentage points.
Significant gender differences also persist. Men continue to smoke far more than women: in 2025, 20.8 per cent of the male population used tobacco or alternative products on a daily basis, compared with 12.6 per cent of women. Here too, there has been a slight improvement compared with 2022, when the figures stood at 22.2 per cent and 13.1 per cent respectively.
By age, the highest incidence is found among middle-aged adults. The 35–49 age group has the highest percentage of daily users (21.3 per cent), followed by those aged between 25 and 34 (19.9 per cent) and those aged between 50 and 64 (19.8 per cent). Consumption is lower, however, among younger and older people: 12.1 per cent among those aged 16 to 24 and 9.1 per cent amongthe over-65s.
Looking at individual Member States, Bulgaria has the highest proportion of daily users of tobacco and related products (26.3 per cent), followed by Sweden (23.9 per cent, a figure that is likely to be very high due to the widespread use of snus and nicotine pouches) and Croatia (23.6 per cent). At the opposite end of the scale are the Netherlands (9.9 per cent), Ireland (11.7 per cent), Belgium (13.6 per cent) and Luxembourg (13.8 per cent).
Italy lies slightly below the European average. In 2025, 15.8 per cent of Italians aged 16 and over reported using tobacco or alternative products on a daily basis, a figure 0.7 percentage points lower than the EU average.
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
