The key facts

  • 12.1% of EU residents (about 46 million people) cannot afford regular leisure due to its cost
  • Range across countries: from 3.9% in Croatia to 27.3% in Greece
  • Women face the barrier more often than men (13% versus 11.1%)

Scale of the problem

According to Eurostat data for 2025, 12.1% of EU residents aged 16 and over cannot afford regular participation in leisure activities due to the associated expenses. With a population of this age of about 381 million people, this means roughly 46 million people. Eurostat notes that leisure and social interaction play a role in improving quality of life, and a number of studies link participation in them with better mental well-being and fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Spread across countries

The rates vary widely even between countries with similar income levels. The highest level is in Greece (27.3%), above 15% also in Romania (23.3%), Lithuania (17.9%), Latvia (16.2%), North Macedonia (15.9%) and Hungary (15.8%). Above the EU average are France (13.9%), Spain (13.4%) and Switzerland (13%). Germany (11.7%) is slightly below the average, Italy stands at 10.7%. At the bottom of the ranking are Croatia (3.9%), Czechia (4.1%), Luxembourg (5.4%), Norway and Slovakia (5.7% each). In the Scandinavian EU countries the rates are higher than in Croatia: Denmark — 10.4%, Sweden — 9.7%, Finland — 7.9%. It is also reported: the Netherlands — 6.7%, Turkey and Portugal — 8.7%, Ireland — 9.2%, Belgium — 9.7%.

Gender differences

In all countries except Malta (a gap of 0.1 percentage points), leisure is less accessible to women than to men. On average across the EU, the rate is 13% among women versus 11.1% among men. The largest gap is recorded in Lithuania (5.1 pp), Romania (4.7 pp), Denmark (3.9 pp) and France (3.7 pp).

The role of income and inequality

Euronews Business analysis across 33 European countries shows a moderate link between median income (in purchasing power standard, Eurostat data) and the share of people for whom regular leisure is unaffordable, but income explains less than a fifth of the differences between countries. Thus, Czechia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have almost identical median incomes (17,097–17,190 PPS), but the rates range from 4.1% in Czechia to 17.9% in Lithuania. France and Cyprus, with virtually equal incomes (23,792 and 23,782 PPS), show 13.9% and 6.3% respectively. Greece, with a median income of 13,612 PPS, has the highest rate (27.3%), whereas Turkey (8.7%) and Serbia (9.9%), with lower incomes, show significantly lower rates. Croatia, Czechia and Slovakia show some of the lowest values with incomes below the EU median (22,638 PPS). According to Eurostat, people below the poverty line are more than three times as likely to be unable to afford regular leisure: 29% versus those above the line. At the same time, the link between income inequality (the Gini coefficient) and leisure accessibility, according to Euronews Business analysis, is weak and statistically insignificant.

Data limitations

The results may depend on how respondents answer the survey questions. In a Eurostat working paper, Anne-Katrin Giao and colleagues note that 'poor people may report not wanting something simply because they cannot afford it'; leisure turned out to be the item most often not perceived as a necessity. According to the Eurostat definition, leisure activities include, in particular, sport, cinema and concerts taking place outside the home and requiring expenses on entrance tickets, travel, equipment (for example, a bicycle) or participation in organised classes (for example, membership fees for a football club).