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People for whom housing costs are a heavy burden

What share of people spend more than 40 per cent of their income on housing, in each European country?

34 of 34 shown in the list

% of the population in households spending over 40% of income on housing

  1. Greece26.4% 2025
  2. Switzerland15.3% 2024
  3. Denmark14.7% 2025
  4. Norway13.5% 2025
  5. Germany11.2% 2025
  6. Sweden10.8% 2025
  7. Türkiye10.0% 2025
  8. Estonia8.8% 2025
  9. Montenegro8.7% 2024
  10. Czechia8.2% 2025
  11. Luxembourg8.1% 2025
  12. Serbia7.9% 2025
  13. Spain7.2% 2025
  14. Bulgaria6.9% 2025
  15. Belgium6.7% 2025
  16. Netherlands6.5% 2025
  17. France6.4% 2025
  18. Portugal6.3% 2025
  19. Austria6.1% 2025
  20. Malta6.0% 2025
  21. Latvia5.7% 2025
  22. Lithuania5.7% 2025
  23. North Macedonia5.6% 2024
  24. Hungary5.3% 2025
  25. Ireland5.3% 2025

Source: Eurostat, Housing cost overburden rate by age, sex and poverty status (ilc_lvho07a). Data for 2024 to 2025. What it counts, how to cite it and the data

At a glance

  • 34 countries or territories have a figure.
  • The highest is Greece at 26.4% (2025) and the lowest is Cyprus at 2.4% (2025).
  • The middle value (the median) is 6.4%.

What it counts

People in households where total housing costs (after allowances) are more than 40 per cent of disposable income, as a share of the population, in the latest year each country reports (since 2021).

What it leaves out, and how far to trust a comparison

The measure counts costs against income and says nothing about the size or quality of the home or about rights such as protection against eviction. Tenants and owners with a mortgage are affected differently, and so are people in cities.

Source

Eurostat: Housing cost overburden rate by age, sex and poverty status (ilc_lvho07a). Source licence: CC BY 4.0. Data retrieved 2026-10-23 to 2026-10-25.

Cite this chart

Free to use in teaching, articles, reports and slides, with credit. Our compilation is licensed CC BY 4.0; the source publishes the underlying data under its own licence, shown below.

Reference (APA style)

TheLawToKnow. (2026). People for whom housing costs are a heavy burden [Chart]. Law in Charts. https://tools.thelawtoknow.com/law-in-charts/housing-cost-overburden. Data: Eurostat, Housing cost overburden rate by age, sex and poverty status (ilc_lvho07a), https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/ilc_lvho07a/default/table (data retrieved 2026-10-23 to 2026-10-25).

Short credit for slides and websites

Chart: TheLawToKnow, Law in Charts (https://tools.thelawtoknow.com/law-in-charts/housing-cost-overburden). Data: Eurostat.

BibTeX

@misc{housingcostoverburden2026,
  author = {{TheLawToKnow}},
  title = {People for whom housing costs are a heavy burden},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Law in Charts},
  url = {https://tools.thelawtoknow.com/law-in-charts/housing-cost-overburden},
  note = {Data: Eurostat, Housing cost overburden rate by age, sex and poverty status (ilc_lvho07a), https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/ilc_lvho07a/default/table. Retrieved 2026-10-23 to 2026-10-25.}
}

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