Housing costs take up more than 40% of disposable income for millions of Europeans. Euronews Business takes a closer look at which countries are hit hardest, with experts explaining the drivers.
House prices in the EU have risen by 69% on average between 2015 and the second quarter of 2026 prices have more than doubled. Rents and energy costs have also continued to climb
“Europe faces a crisis driven by rising house prices and increasing housing costs,” the European Council said.
The housing crisis puts particular pressure on people who spend more than 40% of their disposable income on housing. Eurostat calls this the housing cost overburden rate. In the EU, it stood at 7.7% on average in 2025.
“The main drivers of housing cost overburden are rising costs for housing (be it rents or house prices, which are spiking in many cities) in relation to the modest growth in incomes, especially for the lower quantiles of the income distribution,” Dr Hannah Widmer from ETH Zürich told Euronews Business.
So, which countries are hit hardest? Where in Europe is the housing cost overburden rate highest?
What are housing costs?
According to Eurostat, housing costs are the monthly expenses households pay for their homes. They include rent or mortgage interest, utilities such as water, electricity, gas and heating, and regular charges such as insurance, maintenance, repairs and taxes.
Disposable income refers to a household’s total income after taxes and social contributions. It also includes social benefits such as pensions.
Greece has the highest housing cost overburden rate in Europe among countries with available data. This includes the 27 EU member states, two EFTA countries and five EU candidate countries.
In 2025, 26.4% of people in Greece lived in households that spent more than 40% of their disposable income on housing. This is more than three times the EU average of 7.7%.
Denmark follows among EU countries, with 14.7%. Germany (11.2%) and Sweden (10.8%) are also well above the EU average.
The housing cost overburden rate is also above the EU average in Estonia (8.8%), Czechia (8.2%) and Luxembourg (8.1%).
Outside the EU, the rate is high in Switzerland (15.3%) and Norway (13.5%). Three candidate countries are also above the EU average: Turkey (10%), Montenegro (8.7%) and Serbia (7.9%).
“Given the very different contexts, not least in terms of economy and welfare system, the explanations for the level of the housing cost overburden in Greece, Switzerland and Denmark are not the same. And the consequences are not either,” Rikke Skovgaard Nielsen, senior researcher at Aalborg University, told Euronews Business.
She added that the money people have left after paying rent differs considerably between these three countries, as do living costs. As a result, the impact on households varies too.
Cyprus has the lowest rate. Only 2.4% of people spend more than 40% of their disposable income on housing. Croatia (3.2%), Slovenia (3.5%) and Slovakia (3.5%) also have low rates.
Dr Marietta Haffner from TU Delft noted that when housing costs such as house prices, rents, energy prices, interest rates and inflation rise faster than income, the share of housing costs in income increases. Eventually, the share of those paying more than 40% of their income also increases.
“It is likely that the increasing energy costswill be a main driver in the next year of increasing housing costs,” she said.
Among the EU’s largest economies, Spain (7.2%), France (6.4%) and Italy (5.0%) are all below the EU average, while Germany (11.2%) ranks fifth overall.
Why does the burden differ across countries?
“It’s probably the interplay between housing tenure structures (with tenants renting from the private rental market usually having the highest housing cost burden), welfare systems and the broader economic situation that explains higher or lower shares of housing cost overburden,” Widmer said.
However, she cautioned that comparing countries is complex. Experiencing housing cost overburden can mean something very different in Switzerland than in Greece, depending on welfare provisions and the quality of housing.
Over 34 million people in the EU are affected
The actual numbers tell a clearer story. More than 34 million people in the EU live in households that spend more than 40% of their disposable income on housing.
Germany has the highest number of people affected by housing cost overburden, at 9.4 million. Turkey follows with 8.6 million, followed by France (4.4 million), Spain (3.5 million) and Italy (2.9 million).
Despite its relatively small population compared with these countries, Greece ranks sixth, with 2.7 million people living in households affected by housing cost overburden.
Of course, people on low incomes are hit harder. In the EU, the rate rises to 29.1% among people who are at risk of poverty. This group comprisespeople with an equivalised disposable income below the at-risk-of-poverty threshold, which is set at 60% of the national median equivalised disposable income.
In 2025, the EU’s median equivalised disposable income was €22,939 a year, or €1,912 a month. At EU level, 60% of this amounted to €1,147 a month.
Greece again tops the list. In 2025, 82.6% of people at risk of poverty in Greece lived in households that spent more than 40% of their disposable income on housing. This means that more than four in five were affected. Denmark (59.8%) and Switzerland (56.1%) follow, while the rate is also above 40% in Sweden (46.8%), Norway (43.8%) and Czechia (43.4%).
Germany (35.0%) is above the EU average of 29.1%, while Spain (28.3%), France (25.4%) and Italy (21.7%) are below it.
Cyprus has the lowest rate, at 7.6%, followed by Albania (8.2%), Croatia (14.9%) and Slovakia (15.4%).
Source: www.euronews.com
