Housing, including utility bills, has become the largest expense for Europeans, and its share of household spending has significantly increased over the past two decades.
In the EU, people now spend, on average, 20% of their disposable income on housing costs. Euronews Business takes a closer look at how these costs vary across Europe and what factors influence these differences.
Housing costs refer to the monthly expenses related to occupying a home, which includes utilities like water, electricity, gas, and heating. For homeowners, this also includes mortgage interest payments, while tenants have rental payments. Other housing-related expenses include structural insurance, mandatory services, regular maintenance, repairs, and taxes. According to Eurostat, in 2023, 19.7% of disposable income in the EU went toward housing costs, but this figure varies widely across member states.
For example, in Cyprus, housing costs account for just 11.6% of disposable income, while in Greece, the figure is much higher at 35.2%. Greece stands out as an outlier, with its housing costs far exceeding the EU average. Denmark follows closely at 25.9%, while Germany has the third-highest at 25.2%.
“The economic crisis of the past decade was a key factor that sets Greece apart from other European countries in terms of housing costs,” said Ilias Nikolaidis, content director at the Athens-based think tank diaNEOsis. He explained that between 2009 and 2014, Greek households lost around 40% of their income, and the recent wave of inflation has further squeezed disposable income. However, the crisis also kept property prices low, which led to foreign demand. The rise of gig economy rental platforms and a “golden visa” program further contributed to the demand, driving up prices despite stagnant local incomes.
In the EFTA countries (Norway and Switzerland), housing costs as a share of disposable income were similarly high, at 25% and 25.2%, respectively. Among the EU’s “Big Four” economies, Germany had the highest housing cost burden at 25.2%, followed by France at 17.9%. Spain (17.2%) and Italy (14.5%) had relatively lower figures.
Three Nordic countries—Denmark, Norway, and Sweden—ranked among the top six for housing cost burdens, each surpassing 23.9%. Finland, on the other hand, stood just below the EU average at 19.3%. In addition to Cyprus, Malta (12%), Slovenia (13.8%), Portugal (14%), Croatia (14.4%), and Italy (14.5%) had the lowest housing costs, below 15%.
The OECD’s “Housing Costs Over Income” report highlights several factors that contribute to varying housing cost burdens across countries. These include access to mortgages, mortgage conditions, and loan-to-value ratios. Lower-income households tend to allocate a much larger portion of their disposable income to housing costs. For households earning below 60% of the national median income—deemed at risk of poverty—the share of housing costs averaged 38.2% across the EU.
In Greece, this figure reached 62.4%, with people at risk of poverty spending nearly two-thirds of their disposable income on housing. In fact, 2.7 million, or 26.4% of the Greek population, were at risk of poverty or social exclusion. Other countries, such as Denmark (57%), Norway (48.5%), Sweden (48.1%), Czechia (46.1%), Germany (45.8%), the Netherlands (45.7%), and Switzerland (45.5%), also saw higher-than-average housing costs for households at risk of poverty.
In contrast, for those with a disposable income above 60% of the national median, housing costs averaged 16.2% of their disposable income across the EU.
