Total expenditure on social protection benefits in the EU reached €5 183 billion in 2025, according to early estimates from Eurostat – a 4.9% increase compared with 2024.
The data from the EU’s statistics agency shows that social protection benefits expenditure represented 27.5% of the EU’s GDP, indicating a 0.2 percentage points (pp) decrease compared with the previous year.
Among EU countries, social protection benefits expenditure as a percentage of GDP was highest in Austria (32.4% of GDP), Finland (32.2%), and France (32.1%), while it was lowest in Ireland (11.7%), Malta (13.8%) and Hungary (16.7%).
Within social protection benefits, old age (€2,152 billion, 41.5% of the total) and sickness/health care (€1,556 billion, 30.0%) benefits represented the biggest expenditures. Other categories included disability, survivors, family/children, unemployment, housing and social exclusion not classified elsewhere.
Social protection benefits expenditure in euro terms increased in all EU countries in 2025. The largest increases compared with 2024 were in Croatia (+15.4%), Bulgaria (+12.1%) and Lithuania (+11.6%), while the smallest increases were in Greece (+0.6%), Romania (+0.7%) and Finland (+1.3%).
These figures are based on early estimates on social protection expenditure recently published by Eurostat. They cover the main indicators of the European System of Integrated Social Protection Statistics (ESSPROS) and are provided by the reporting countries on a voluntary basis.
