Brussels – Healthcare, family emergencies, unexpected fines – it doesn’t matter: according to Eurostat, the European Union’s statistical office, in 2025, 29.2 per cent of EU citizens were unable to cope with unexpected expenses, a slight decrease compared with the 30 per cent recorded in 2024. Looking at individual countries, more than half the population in Greece (50.5 per cent) was unable to meet unexpected expenses. After Greece, the highest percentages were observed in Latvia (43.7 per cent) and Bulgaria (42.4 per cent), while the lowest were in the Netherlands (15.3 per cent), Malta and the Czech Republic (both at 18.7 per cent). In Italy, the figure stood at 25.6 per cent, i.e. one in four citizens.
The Agency underlines that between 2015 and 2025, the percentage fell by 8.2 percentage points. The figure had peaked in 2012 (40 per cent), in the wake of the global financial and economic crisis. In the years that followed, it fell to 30.8 per cent in 2019. In 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, it rose again to 32.5 per cent.
Using a broader indicator of payment arrears – which includes unpaid mortgages or rent, overdue utility bills and instalment payments, but excludes bank overdrafts, credit cards, and informal loans – the proportion of people affected in the EU in 2025 stood at 9.2 per cent. From 2015 to 2025, the proportion initially fell, from 11.8 per cent in 2015 to 8.2 per cent in 2019. With the COVID-19 pandemic, it rose again, standing at 8.8 per cent in 2020, before reaching 9.3 per cent in 2023 and 9.2 per cent in 2024. These figures are lower than the 12.9 per cent recorded in both 2013 and 2014 in the wake of the global financial and economic crisis.
In 2015, the proportion of Europeans living below the poverty line and in arrears on mortgages, rent, utility bills or instalment payments was around three times higher than the proportion of those living above the poverty line. Between 2015 and 2021, the ratio was approximately three; it fell to 2.8 in 2022 and 2023, and stood at 2.9 in both 2024 and 2025. Furthermore, in 2025, 20.5 per cent of the EU population was below the poverty line and 7.1 per cent above it.
In 2025, just under one in ten people in the EU (9.2 per cent) were in arrears with mortgage or rent payments, utility bills or instalments for hire purchase. Still, this proportion was almost double (17.5 per cent) among those living in households consisting of a single adult with dependent children. The proportion was also significantly higher (17 per cent) among people living in households comprising two adults and three or more dependent children.
