Data extracted in October 2025.
Planned article update: October 2026.
Highlights
Rail passenger transport for main undertakings, EU, 2015-2024
This article presents the main trends in rail passenger transport in the European Union (EU), and the EFTA countries Norway and Switzerland as well as the candidate countries Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Türkiye. It covers quarterly and annual rail passenger transport data. This article, together with the article Railway freight transport statistics presents a complete overview of railway transport in Europe.
EU rail passenger transport performance peaked in 2024
Figure 1 presents the evolution of EU rail passenger transport performance between 2015 and 2024. It should be noted that Belgium’s data are not included for confidentiality reasons. Over the period of 2015 to 2019, there was a steady rise in demand for rail passenger transport, resulting in a 9.4% increase overall. In 2019, a peak of 400 billion passenger-kilometres (pkm) was reached. This upward trend was swiftly reversed in 2020 with the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to strict precautions and reduced train services from March 2020 onwards, rail passenger transport significantly decreased across all EU countries. Compared with 2019, rail passenger transport performance almost halved in the EU (-46.6%) reaching 214 billion pkm.
In 2021, only a partial recovery was observed, with a 16.3% increase compared with 2020. In 2022, the recovery of rail passenger transport was more noticeable with a sharp increase of 51.4% compared with 2021. In 2023 and 2024, rail passenger transport continued this positive trend compared with the previous years, with further growths of 11.3% in 2023 and 5.8% in 2024, reaching a new peak of 443 billion pkm in 2024. This level exceeds the pre-pandemic performance of 2019 by 10.7%. All quarters of 2024 showed increases in performance compared with the same quarters of the previous year: +9.6% in the first quarter, +7.2% in the second quarter, +2.6% in the third quarter and +4.8% in the fourth quarter.
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Source: Eurostat (rail_pa_typepas) and (rail_pa_quartal)
Germany and France were the largest contributors to EU rail passenger transport performance in 2024
In 2024, all EU countries recorded an increase in rail passenger transport performance compared with 2023, except for the Netherlands (-11.3% - note that there is a break in time series in 2024 due to methodological improvements), Bulgaria (-5.9%), Estonia (-5.7%) and Romania (-3.6%) (see Figure 2). The strongest increase among the EU countries was recorded by Hungary (+44.2%), primarily following the rollout of a simplified tariff system with discounted and free options for specific groups. Increases in the EU were also recorded by Slovenia (+19.5%), Latvia (+14.1%), Lithuania and Portugal (both +12.8%), Ireland (+11.2%), Poland (+10.2%) and Luxembourg (+10.0%). The EFTA countries Norway and Switzerland, as well as the candidate country Serbia, also recorded large increases, by 25.9%, 18.5% and 10.8%, respectively. By contrast, the candidate countries Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia registered large decreases, by 10.0% and 18.3%, respectively.
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Source: Eurostat (rail_pa_typepas) and (rail_pa_quartal)
In 2024, Germany and France were the largest contributors to rail passenger transport performance in the EU, with 107.6 billion pkm and 107.3 billion pkm, respectively. At the other end of the scale, 6 EU countries recorded less than 1 billion pkm in 2024. The candidate countries Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and North Macedonia recorded less than 70 million pkm in 2024.
From the perspective of the share between national and international transport, national transport is predominant in all countries. It represented more than 90% of the total rail passenger transport performance for all countries in 2024, except for Luxembourg and Czechia, where national transport represented 63.5% and 82.1%, respectively (see Figure 3). Estonia, Greece, Portugal and Finland only reported national passenger transport for 2024.
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Source: Eurostat (rail_pa_typepas)
Rail passenger per capita: Luxembourg and Denmark had the highest rates in 2024
With the exception of 2 countries, all EU countries reported increases in the number of passengers transported by rail in 2024 (see Figure 4) compared with 2023. Hungary recorded the largest increase by 60.0%, followed by Latvia (+13.9%), Ireland (+10.0%), Greece (+9.7%), Poland (+9.3%), Portugal (+9.2%) and Luxembourg (+9.0%). By contrast, Romania and Bulgaria recorded a fall in 2024 compared with 2023, by 4.9% and 3.1%, respectively. It is worth noting that even though Romania and Bulgaria recorded decreases in passenger numbers transported by rail in 2024 compared with 2023, they nevertheless recorded increases in terms of pkm. By contrast, France, the Netherlands, Ireland and Latvia recorded decreases in terms of pkm while increases were recorded in number of passengers transported by rail. Note that for the Netherlands, there is a break in time series in 2024 due to methodological improvements. Among the candidate countries, Serbia reported a substantial increase (+11.5%) in the number of passengers transported by rail. In contrast, North Macedonia, Türkiye and Bosnia and Herzegovina recorded decreases (-15.3%, -6.2% and -6.0%, respectively). However, North Macedonia also registered an increase in passenger-kilometres in 2024 compared with 2023.
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Source: Eurostat (rail_pa_typepas) and (rail_pa_quartal)
Regarding the number of passengers transported by rail, Germany was by far the largest contributor in the EU, recording 2.9 billion passengers in 2024. France, Italy and Spain followed with 1.3, 0.8 and 0.7 billion passengers, respectively. At the other end of the scale, Lithuania and Estonia registered less than 8 million passengers in 2024. Less than 1 million passengers were recorded in 2024 in the candidate countries Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and North Macedonia.
Figure 5 presents the number of passengers transported in relation to the population of the reporting countries. Luxembourg and Denmark had the highest rates in 2024, with 32.8 and 31.0 passengers per capita, respectively. These 2 countries were closely followed by Germany (30.0 passengers per capita) and Austria (28.5 passengers per capita). Sweden, the Netherlands, France, Portugal and Czechia were the other EU countries with 16 passengers per capita and more (23.1, 17.8, 16.7, 16.1 and 16.0, respectively). For 5 EU countries, the rate stood between 15 and 11 passengers per capita; for 5 other EU countries between 10 and 5 passengers per capita; and another 5 EU countries had a rate between 5 and 1 passenger per capita of which Greece and Lithuania registered the lowest rate with 1.5 rail passengers per capita, each, in 2024. The EFTA country Switzerland registered the highest rate, with 48.3 rail passengers per capita in 2024. The candidate countries Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Serbia and Türkiye, recorded even less than 1 passenger per capita transported by rail in 2024.
When comparing the per capita rates of 2024 with 2023, Luxembourg experienced the highest decrease in passengers per capita among EU countries, by 0.6. Austria and Portugal recorded both a decrease by 0.2, while 8 EU countries recorded a decrease by 0.1. By contrast, Latvia showed an increase by 0.1. The remaining 12 EU countries and 5 candidate countries had the same ratio in 2023 and 2024. The EFTA country Switzerland registered a decrease by 0.8 passengers per capita, while Norway recorded a decrease by 0.1.
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Source: Eurostat (rail_pa_typepas) and (rail_pa_quartal)
Source data for tables and graphs
Data sources
The figures presented in this article have been extracted from the Eurostat rail transport database. They include data on national, international and transit transport of the Member States, EFTA, candidate countries and potential candidates, collected according to the Regulation (EU) No 2018/643 - recast of Regulation (EU) No 2016/2032. The transport of passengers by metro, tram and/or light rail is excluded. The data presented are included in Eurostat’s dissemination database (reference tables are provided under each table and graph). There are no railways in Cyprus, Malta and Iceland. The various elements present data collected under the detailed reporting system, meaning that data include only main undertakings which are defined as follows:
- Until 2015: undertakings with a total transport performance greater than 500 million tonne-km or 200 million passenger-km.
- From 2016: undertakings with a total volume of goods transport of at least 200 million tonne-km or at least 500 000 tonnes or total volume of passenger transport of at least 100 million passenger-km.
Railway undertakings which are below the thresholds may however be included for some countries. Basic results and derived indicators (such as growth rates and shares in percentage of total) in the tables are rounded. However, the figures are based on the non-rounded original data. Explanatory notes for countries are available in the metadata on the Eurostat website.
Context
The content of this statistical article is based on data collected within the framework of Regulation (EU) No 2018/643 recast of Regulation (EU) No 2016/2032.