Data from 17 December 2025
Planned update: June 2026
Highlights
Price level index for final household expenditure (HFCE), 2024
This article presents the most recent analysis of price levels for consumer goods and services in the European Union (EU), focusing on price level indices, which provide a comparison of countries' price levels relative to the EU average and are calculated using purchasing power parities.
The results are based on price surveys covering more than 2 000 consumer goods and services which were conducted across 36 European countries participating in the Eurostat-OECD Purchasing Power Parities (PPP) programme. The group of participating countries includes the 27 EU countries, 3 EFTA countries (Iceland, Norway and Switzerland) and 6 candidate countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Türkiye).
Overall price levels
In 2024, price levels for consumer goods and services differed widely across Europe. The highest price level among EU countries was observed in Denmark, 41% above the EU average, while in Bulgaria the price level was 39% below the EU average.
An understanding of the differences in price levels is important in the comparison of economic data, such as gross domestic product (GDP), because higher relative prices could make an economy look healthier than it really is. Observing price level differences is also important in the analysis of the development of the EU's single market for goods and services.
Figure 1 shows the price level indices for total household final consumption expenditure (HFCE) on goods and services in 2024.
Source: Eurostat (prc_ppp_ind_1)
Price levels for food, beverages, tobacco, clothing and footwear
Table 1 shows the price level indices for 4 important groups of consumer goods and services (see below for a description of the content of each product group):
- food and non-alcoholic beverages
- alcoholic beverages and tobacco
- clothing
- footwear
These 4 groups represented on average 17%, 5%, 3% and 1% of household expenditure in 2024, respectively. For reference, the price level indices of total HFCE (those of Figure 1) are also shown. The shaded fields indicate the highest and lowest price level indices per product group among all 36 participating countries. The highest and lowest price level indices among the 27 EU countries are marked in bold. At the bottom of the table, coefficients of variation are provided for the euro area / (EA-20), the current composition of the EU (27 EU countries) and the group of all 36 countries participating in the programme (all 36).
The coefficient of variation is defined as the standard deviation of the price level indices of the respective group of countries as a percentage of their average price level index. The higher the coefficient of variation for a given product group, the higher the price dispersion across countries.
Among the EU countries, in 2024, Luxembourg had the highest price level for food and non-alcoholic beverages, Ireland - for alcoholic beverages and tobacco, while Denmark was the most expensive for clothing and for footwear. Among all 36 countries, Switzerland had the highest price levels for food and non-alcoholic beverages and for clothing, and Iceland - for alcoholic beverages and tobacco, as well as for footwear.
At the other end of the spectrum, North Macedonia showed the lowest price levels of all 36 countries for food and non-alcoholic beverages and for alcoholic beverages and tobacco, Türkiye was the least expensive country for clothing while Bulgaria had the lowest price level for footwear. Among the EU countries, Romania was the least expensive country for food and non-alcoholic beverages, Bulgaria - for the other 3 categories (alcoholic beverages and tobacco, footwear and clothing).
In 2024, the highest price dispersion was found for alcoholic beverages and tobacco. This results is affected by the large differences in taxation on these products across the 36 countries.
Source: Eurostat (prc_ppp_ind_1)
Price levels for energy, furniture, household appliances and information equipment
Table 2 shows the price level indices for another 4 groups of goods and services (see below in the section on Data sources for a description of these product groups):
- energy (electricity, gas and other fuels);
- furniture and furnishing, carpets and other floor coverings
- household appliances
- information and communication equipment
In 2024, these groups represented on average 5%, 2%, 1% and 1% of household final consumption expenditure, respectively.
Price dispersion varied significantly between these 4 product groups, being the most pronounced for electricity, gas and other fuels, with Switzerland being the most expensive and Türkiye - the least expensive of all 36 participating countries. Among EU countries, Germany was the most expensive and Hungary - the least expensive for energy.
For the other 3 product groups shown in Table 2, the price dispersion in the EU was much lower in 2024, especially for information and communication equipment.
Among EU countries, Malta was the most expensive country for furniture and furnishings, Denmark was the most expensive one for household appliances, while France had the highest price level index for information and communication equipment. The lowest prices for these 3 groups were reported in Bulgaria, Slovakia and Italy, respectively. Among all 36 countries, again Malta was the most expensive for furniture and furnishings, while Iceland had the highest price levels for household appliances and Türkiye - for information and communication equipment. In contrast, North Macedonia was the least expensive for furniture, Bosnia and Herzegovina - for household appliances and Italy - for information and communication equipment.
Source: Eurostat (prc_ppp_ind_1)
Price levels for personal transport equipment, transport services, communication, restaurants and hotels
Table 3 shows the price level indices for another 4 groups of goods and services (see below in the section on Data source for a description of these product groups):
- personal transport equipment
- transport services
- communication (services and equipment)
- restaurants and hotels
These groups represent on average 2%, 2%, 4% and 10% of household final consumption expenditure, respectively.
In 2024, price dispersion for personal transport equipment was not very significant. Among EU countries, Denmark stood out with a high price level index for this category. This was due to high taxation levels on cars. The lowest price level for this product group was found in Slovakia. Among all 36 countries, Türkiye showed the highest price level index for this group of goods, while the lowest prices was found in North Macedonia.
Price dispersion was significantly higher for the other 3 service categories (transport services, communication, as well as restaurants and hotels). In general, prices for services tend to show larger differences across countries than prices for goods, due to the higher share of labour input into services and the high dispersion of wages across countries.
Concerning transport services, in 2024, Iceland showed the highest price level index among all countries, while Denmark had the highest prices among EU countries. The lowest price levels among all countries were observed in North Macedonia and Bulgaria.
Among all 36 countries, the highest price level for communication in 2024 was found in Switzerland and in the EU it was Belgium, while the lowest price for all 36 countries was in Romania.
In 2024, Switzerland stood out with the most expensive restaurants and hotels, while the lowest prices for these services were observed in North Macedonia. Among the EU countries, these positions were taken by Denmark and Bulgaria respectively.
Source: Eurostat (prc_ppp_ind_1)
Data sources
The full methodology used in the Eurostat-OECD Purchasing Power Parities (PPP) programme is described in the 'Eurostat-OECD Methodological Manual on Purchasing Power Parities' available free of charge from the Eurostat website. For some basic headings, particularly those covered by the Hospital survey, price data were partially or completely missing for 2022, 2023, and 2024. For 2024, data were missing for Belgium, Germany, France, Spain, Slovakia, and Switzerland. For Estonia, data were missing for both 2023 and 2024. Among the candidate countries, data were completely or partially missing for Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Serbia. Eurostat estimated their PPP results for these basic headings for which no prices were reported by the countries. The implementation of COICOP 2018 applies only to the years 2022, 2023, and 2024. Data for previous years (1995–2021) have been estimated only for GDP and its main components and are published in the new Eurobase dataset. Data for the former analytical categories, based on the previous COICOP classification, remain available in the earlier dataset.
The PPP concept
In their simplest form PPPs are nothing more than price relatives that show the ratio of the prices in national currencies for the same good or service in different countries. For example, if the price of a hamburger in Sweden is 28.60 Swedish krona and in Italy it is 2.76 euro, the PPP for hamburgers between Sweden and Italy is 28.60 krona to 2.76 euro or 10.36 krona to the euro. In other words, for every euro spent on hamburgers in Italy, 10.36 krona would have to be spent in Sweden in order to obtain the same quantity and quality – or volume – of hamburgers.
The provisional PPP estimates for year t are released at t+6 months. The data release is accompanied by 2 news items presenting the provisional estimates of Actual Individual Consumption (AIC) per capita and volume indices of AIC and GDP, and the price levels for a selection of analytical categories comprising household expenditure.
By the end of September (t+9 months) each year, countries report for the first time the expenditures at basic heading level for the year t. The PPPs calculated with these expenditures are released in t+12 months and referred to as first estimates. At the same time as the first estimates of PPPs are calculated for t, the second or intermediate estimates of PPPs for the year t-1 and the third or final estimates of PPPs for the year t-2 are calculated.
In 2022 Eurostat introduced the PPP preliminary estimates, which will be regularly released in March year t+1. Given the availability of the data sources and the possibility of applying a similar method to that used for the first estimates at t+6, Eurostat calculates GDP PPPs for the EU 27 Member States at the most detailed level possible and using the latest available prices and national accounts data.
The main differences in the compilation process between the PPP preliminary estimates and the provisional PPP estimates released at t+6 months are:
- in terms of geographical coverage – the provisional estimates will include all 36 countries, not just the EU 27 Member States
- in terms of level of detail – the provisional estimates will be available for all analytical categories, not just for GDP
- in terms of information available - the provisional estimates include more complete and more final price data from the countries than the PPP preliminary estimates. Also the provisional estimates are based on the national accounts data available at the end of May of year t.
Published PPPs, usually refer to product groups or broad aggregates like gross domestic product (GDP) rather than to individual products. However, these aggregate PPPs are based on sample surveys of individual goods and services.
Price level indices
The results of these surveys are expressed in the form of price level indices. Price level indices are the ratios of PPPs to exchange rates. They provide a comparison of countries' price levels relative to the European Union average: If the price level index is higher than 100, the country concerned is relatively expensive compared with the EU average, while if the price level index is lower than 100, then the country is relatively inexpensive compared with the EU average. The EU average is calculated as the weighted average of the national price level indices, weighted with expenditures from national accounts.
Price level indices are not intended to rank countries strictly. In fact, they only provide an indication of the order of magnitude of the price level in one country in relation to others, particularly when countries are clustered around a very narrow range of outcomes. The degree of uncertainty associated with the basic price data and the methods used for compiling PPPs, may affect in such a case the minor differences between the price level indices and result in differences in ranking which are not statistically or economically significant.
Organisation
Within the framework of the Eurostat-OECD Purchasing Power Parities (PPP) programme, surveys on prices of household goods and services are carried out cyclically by the National Statistical Institutes (NSIs) of 36 countries. Each survey cycle comprises 6 surveys, each related to a particular group of household consumption products. As 2 surveys are carried out per year, the whole survey cycle takes 3 years to complete, before the next cycle starts.
The price level indices in this article are thus based on price data collected in 2022, 2023 and 2024. The prices collected in 2022 and 2023 have been extrapolated to 2024 using detailed consumer price indices. The price level indices are based on annual national average prices for in total more than 2000 goods and services. The expenditure shares are based on national accounts data for 2024 and represent the average over all participating countries. The national accounts data are also used as weights in the aggregation of detailed price level indices to aggregate price level indices such as for household final consumption expenditure.
Definition of the product groups
The product groups discussed in this article can be broadly described as follows.
- Food and non-alcoholic beverages: bread and cereals; meat; fish; milk; cheese; eggs; oils and fats; fruits; vegetables; potatoes; other food; non-alcoholic beverages.
- Alcoholic beverages and tobacco: spirits; wine; beer; tobacco.
- Clothing: clothing materials; men's, women's, children’s and infant’s clothing; other articles of clothing and clothing accessories (excludes cleaning, repair and hire of clothing).
- Footwear: men's, women's, children's and infants' footwear (excludes repair and hire of footwear).
- Electricity, gas and other fuels: electricity; gas; liquid fuels; solid fuels; and heat energy (all for domestic use).
- Furniture and furnishing, carpets and other floor coverings: kitchen furniture; bedroom furniture; living-room and dining-room furniture; other furniture and furnishings; carpets and other floor coverings (excludes repair of furniture, furnishings and floor coverings).
- Household appliances: refrigerators and freezers; washing machines; dishwashers; cookers; microwave ovens; vacuum cleaners; coffee makers; kettles; toasters, etc. (excludes repair of household appliances).
- Information and communication equipment: desktop computers; laptop computers; laser printers; scanners; servers; hard drives; desktop monitors; tablets; USB flash drives; security cameras; video conference units; LCD displays; Bluetooth headsets and speakers; smartphones.
- Personal transport equipment: motor cars; motor cycles and bicycles (excludes maintenance and repair of personal transport equipment, spare parts and fuels).
- Transport services: Passenger transport by railway, by road, by air, by sea and inland waterway and other purchased transport services (e.g. left luggage services, removal services).
- Communication: postal services; telephone and telefax equipment; telephone and telefax services.
- Restaurants and hotels: restaurants; cafés; pubs; bars; canteens; hotels; youth hostels, etc.
Context
Purchasing power parities (PPPs) are indicators of price level differences across countries. PPPs tell us how many currency units a given quantity of goods and services costs in different countries. PPPs can thus be used as currency conversion rates to convert expenditures expressed in national currencies into an artificial common currency, the purchasing power standard (PPS), eliminating the effect of price level differences across countries.
The main use of PPPs is to convert national accounts aggregates, like the gross domestic product (GDP) of different countries, into comparable volume aggregates. Applying nominal exchange rates in this process would overestimate the GDP of countries with high price levels relative to countries with low price levels. The use of PPPs ensures that the GDP of all countries is valued at a uniform price level and thus reflects only differences in the actual volume of the economy.
PPPs are also applied in analyses of relative price levels across countries. For this purpose, the PPPs are divided by the current nominal exchange rate to obtain a price level index which expresses the price level of a given country relative to another, or relative to a group of countries like the EU.
The common rules for the provision of input data, and for the calculation and dissemination of PPPs, are laid down in Regulation (EC) No 1445/2007 of 11 December 2007. </context>
Explore further
Other articles
Database
- Purchasing power parities (PPPs), price level indices and real expenditures for ESA2010 aggregates (prc_ppp_ind_1)
- Convergence indicators (prc_ppp_conv)
Selected datasets
- Comparative price levels (tec00120)
- Price and volume convergence between EU countries (tec00121)
- GDP per capita in PPS (tec00114)
Methodology
- Eurostat-OECD Methodological manual on purchasing power parities
- Product list 2022-2024
- Purchasing power parities (ESMS metadata file — prc_ppp_esms)
External links
Legislation
- Regulation (EC) No 1445/2007 of 11 December 2007 establishing common rules for the provision of basic information on Purchasing Power Parities and for their calculation and dissemination
- Summaries of EU Legislation: Purchasing power parities