One in six residents of the European Union lives in cramped housing, while approximately one in three lives in a household that is considered too spacious for the number of residents, according to Eurostat’s overview publication ‘Housing in Europe – 2025 edition’.
According to the statistics agency’s estimates, in 2024, about 17% of the EU population lived in overcrowded housing. The highest rates of ‘overcrowding’ were recorded in Romania (41%), Latvia (39%) and Bulgaria (34%).
The lowest rates of overcrowded housing were recorded in Cyprus (2%), Malta (4%) and the Netherlands (5%).
At the same time, about 33% of the EU population lives in ‘underoccupied’ housing – houses and flats that are considered too large for the number of people living in them.
The highest proportion of such households is in Cyprus (70%), Ireland (67%) and Malta (64%), and the lowest in Romania (7%), Latvia (10%) and Greece (13%).
