One Dutch Adult in Three Volunteers. In Bulgaria It Is One in Thirty.
Silver Data Lab Research Desk · Statistical analysis · Published on 27 April 2026
- Data source
- Eurostat
- Reference period
- 2022
- Last updated
- 28 August 2026
Key estimates
- 12.3% of EU adults took part in formal voluntary activities in 2022.
- The Netherlands records 36.0%, more than one adult in three.
- Bulgaria records 3.0%, Romania 3.9% and Italy 5.3%.
- The Dutch rate is twelve times the Bulgarian one.
- Ten of the twenty-six Member States with data are above the EU rate, and sixteen below it.
Organised unpaid work
Formal voluntary activity means unpaid work carried out through an organisation: a charity, a sports club, a religious body, a rescue service. It excludes helping a neighbour directly, which is counted separately as informal help.
Across the EU in 2022, 12.3% of adults took part. Roughly one in eight.
A north-west to south-east gradient
The Netherlands records 36.0%, far ahead of Denmark at 26.0%, Luxembourg at 25.1%, Finland at 23.9% and Sweden at 22.1%.
Slovenia at 20.7% and Ireland at 20.5% follow, then Austria at 19.7%.
At the other end, Bulgaria records 3.0%, Romania 3.9%, Italy 5.3%, Hungary 5.8% and Latvia 6.2%.
The gradient runs from the north-west to the south-east with few exceptions, and Slovenia at sixth is the clearest of those exceptions.
Italy is the case worth naming
Italy records 5.3%, third from the bottom of the Union — below Poland, Greece, Portugal and Slovakia, and a seventh of the Dutch rate.
That is not what the country's reputation for civic and religious association would predict, and it is not explained by income: Italy's GDP per capita is close to the EU average and well above every Member State ranked below it.
One partial explanation is definitional. This indicator counts activity organised through a formal body, and a country where mutual help runs through family and neighbourhood networks rather than registered organisations will record less of it while doing no less of it. Eurostat measures informal help separately for exactly this reason, and that series is not used here.
Whether that accounts for the Italian figure is not something this extraction can settle. It is a caution against reading the ranking as a measure of how much people help one another.
What the ranking is evidence about
Volunteering rates of this kind are usually taken as an indicator of civic infrastructure: whether a country has a dense layer of organisations that people can join, and whether joining them is a normal thing to do.
Read that way, the ranking describes the organisational landscape more than it describes generosity. The Netherlands does not have twelve times Bulgaria's supply of people willing to help. It has a very different density of organisations through which help is channelled and recorded.
The reference year
This series is collected every few years rather than annually. 2022 is the most recent wave, and the one before it was 2015, so this is a snapshot rather than a trend and should not be compared with the annual indicators elsewhere on this site.
Participation in formal voluntary activities, 2022
| Country | % of adults aged 16 and over | Gap to EU averagepercentage points, derived |
|---|---|---|
| Netherlands | 36.0 | +23.7 |
| Denmark | 26.0 | +13.7 |
| Luxembourg | 25.1 | +12.8 |
| European Unionaggregate | 12.3 | — |
| Italy | 5.3 | −7.0 |
| Romania | 3.9 | −8.4 |
| Bulgaria | 3.0 | −9.3 |
What these figures cannot tell you
- Formal activity only
- The indicator counts unpaid work organised through an institution. Helping neighbours, relatives or friends directly is measured by a separate Eurostat series and is excluded here, which may substantially understate mutual help in countries where it runs through informal networks.
- Germany is absent
- Eurostat publishes no value for Germany for 2022, so national comparisons cover 26 Member States against an EU aggregate that includes all 27.
- A snapshot, not a series
- This module is collected every few years. The previous wave was 2015, so year-on-year change is not available and these figures are not comparable with the annual indicators published elsewhere on this site.
- What counts as an organisation differs
- Member States apply a common definition to national institutional landscapes that differ considerably. Where the boundary between an organisation and an informal group falls will affect the count.
Frequently asked questions
- How many Europeans volunteer?
- 12.3% of adults aged 16 and over took part in formal voluntary activities in 2022 — roughly one in eight. The measure covers unpaid work organised through an institution, not informal help given directly to others.
- Which EU country volunteers most?
- The Netherlands, at 36.0% of adults in 2022, well ahead of Denmark at 26.0% and Luxembourg at 25.1%.
- Which EU country volunteers least?
- Bulgaria at 3.0%, Romania at 3.9% and Italy at 5.3%. The Dutch rate is twelve times the Bulgarian one.
- Does a low rate mean people help each other less?
- Not necessarily. This indicator counts only help organised through a formal body. In countries where mutual assistance runs through family and neighbourhood networks it is recorded as informal help, which Eurostat measures separately and this study does not use.
Methodological note
Eurostat collects participation in voluntary activities through an EU-SILC ad hoc module. This study uses formal voluntary activities for the population aged 16 and over, all education levels, both sexes.
Values are for 2022, the most recent wave. Germany has no published value for that year, so national comparisons cover 26 Member States; the EU aggregate is as published.
The counts of Member States above and below the EU rate, and the ratio between the highest and lowest, are derived by Silver Data Lab from the published rates.
Source data
The underlying series can be inspected and re-downloaded from the Eurostat data browser. The filters below are the ones applied.
Persons participating in formal voluntary activities
ilc_scp19
- Filters applied:
- freq=A · isced11=TOTAL · acl00=AC41A · age=Y_GE16 · sex=T · unit=PC · time=2022
- Extracted:
- 2026-08-11
- Source last updated:
- 2026-04-24
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