The Law To Know

Law in Charts · Courts, police and prisons

What governments spend on law courts, per inhabitant

How many euro per inhabitant does government spend each year on the law courts?

30 of 30 shown in the list

euro per inhabitant per year, general government spending

  1. Luxembourg346 2025
  2. Switzerland286 2024
  3. Germany194 2024
  4. Malta182 2024
  5. Netherlands181 2024
  6. Iceland176 2024
  7. Austria159 2024
  8. Ireland143 2024
  9. Slovenia141 2024
  10. Sweden138 2024
  11. Italy132 2024
  12. Poland124 2024
  13. Belgium123 2024
  14. France121 2024
  15. Bulgaria119 2024
  16. Finland118 2024
  17. Denmark111 2024
  18. Spain111 2024
  19. Latvia110 2024
  20. Norway110 2024
  21. Croatia103 2024
  22. Estonia86 2024
  23. Czechia85 2024
  24. Portugal78 2024
  25. Slovakia78 2024

Source: Eurostat, General government expenditure by function (COFOG) GF0303, divided by the population on 1 January (demo_pjan). Data for 2024 to 2025. What it counts, how to cite it and the data

At a glance

  • 30 countries or territories have a figure.
  • The highest is Luxembourg at 346 (2025) and the lowest is Cyprus at 52 (2024).
  • The middle value (the median) is 119.

What it counts

General government spending on the function 'law courts' (COFOG 03.3): the running of the civil and criminal courts and the judicial system, including legal representation and advice that government provides, divided by the population on 1 January.

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

The figure is general government spending (central, regional and local together) in euro at the prices of its year, divided by the population. Prices and wages differ a great deal between countries, so a higher figure does not mean more, or better, justice. Countries also fund and classify some activities differently, and very small countries can show extreme figures.

Source

Eurostat: General government expenditure by function (COFOG) GF0303, divided by the population on 1 January (demo_pjan). 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). What governments spend on law courts, per inhabitant [Chart]. Law in Charts. https://tools.thelawtoknow.com/law-in-charts/spending-law-courts. Data: Eurostat, General government expenditure by function (COFOG) GF0303, divided by the population on 1 January (demo_pjan), https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/gov_10a_exp/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/spending-law-courts). Data: Eurostat.

BibTeX

@misc{spendinglawcourts2026,
  author = {{TheLawToKnow}},
  title = {What governments spend on law courts, per inhabitant},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Law in Charts},
  url = {https://tools.thelawtoknow.com/law-in-charts/spending-law-courts},
  note = {Data: Eurostat, General government expenditure by function (COFOG) GF0303, divided by the population on 1 January (demo_pjan), https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/gov_10a_exp/default/table. Retrieved 2026-10-23 to 2026-10-25.}
}

Embed this chart on your own page

<iframe src="https://tools.thelawtoknow.com/embed/law-in-charts/spending-law-courts" title="What governments spend on law courts, per inhabitant, TheLawToKnow Law in Charts" width="100%" height="620" style="border:0" loading="lazy"></iframe>

Download the data (CSV)

Learn more

More in Courts, police and prisons

General information, not legal advice. All charts.