Home ownership and the structure of housing tenure
- Eurostat dataset
- ilc_lvho02
- Reference period
- 2025
- Unit of measure
- % of population
Key estimates
- EU aggregate (2025): 20.8 % of population.
- Highest value: Germany at 46.8 % of population; lowest: Croatia at 1.70 % of population.
- Cross-country mean 16.0 % of population, standard deviation 11.9, coefficient of variation 74.3% across 30 reporting countries.
- Aggregate change 2014→2025: +13.9% on a constant panel of 30 countries.
How much of Europe rents at market prices? Eurostat dataset ilc_lvho02 reports home ownership and the structure of housing tenure for 30 reporting countries, with 2025 as the most recent period carrying broad coverage. The European aggregate stands at 20.8 % of population. Tenure structure determines who is exposed to house price and rent inflation.
The five highest values in 2025 are recorded by Germany (46.8), Denmark (41.4), Sweden (34.9), Austria (30.8), Luxembourg (28.1), all expressed in % of population. At the opposite end of the distribution sit Croatia (1.70), Bulgaria (2.20), Romania (2.30), Serbia (2.60), Lithuania (3.60). The ratio between the highest and the lowest observation is 27.53, while the median country reports 15.6 % of population against a mean of 16.0 % of population.
Dispersion is wide: the standard deviation across countries is 11.9 % of population, giving a coefficient of variation of 74.3%. The mean sits above the median, which indicates that the distribution is pulled by the upper tail rather than being symmetric. Any European average quoted for this indicator therefore describes a synthetic country that few Member States resemble.
Between 2014 and 2025 the summed value across the 30 countries reporting in both periods moved by +13.9%. The largest relative increases are observed in Malta (+863.6%), Romania (+187.5%), Lithuania (+176.9%); the largest decreases, or the smallest increases, in Netherlands (-83.1%), Slovakia (-50.6%), Latvia (-24.1%). Because the panel is held constant, this change is not an artefact of countries entering or leaving the sample.
This indicator has no normatively preferred direction; its analytical value lies in the structure of the distribution and in how national positions move relative to each other over time. The estimates above are reproducible: the dataset identifier, filter dimensions and reference period are stated in the methodological note, and the series can be re-downloaded from the Eurostat dissemination API at any time.
Methodological note
Source: Eurostat, dataset ilc_lvho02 ('Distribution of population by tenure status, type of household and income group'), extracted from the Eurostat dissemination API (JSON-stat 2.0) on the dataset update of 2026-06-11. Filter dimensions: unit=PC; rskpovth=TOTAL; hhcomp=TOTAL; tenure=RENT_MKT. Unit of measure: % of population. Reference period: 2025. Geographic perimeter: national reporting units with two-character geo codes (30 countries with a non-missing observation); European and euro-area aggregates are excluded from the cross-country statistics and reported separately. Descriptive statistics (mean, median, population standard deviation, coefficient of variation) are computed unweighted over reporting countries. Change over time is computed on a constant panel: only countries with a non-missing observation in both the base and the reference period enter the calculation, which removes composition effects but may differ from the officially published aggregate. No imputation, seasonal adjustment or re-scaling has been applied beyond what Eurostat performs at source. Flagged provisional and estimated observations are retained as published.
Source data
The underlying series can be inspected and re-downloaded from the Eurostat data browser.