Regional output per inhabitant and territorial convergence
- Eurostat dataset
- nama_10r_2gdp
- Reference period
- 2024
- Unit of measure
- euro per inhabitant
Key estimates
- EU aggregate (2024): 39 900 euro per inhabitant.
- Highest value: Luxembourg at 127 000 euro per inhabitant; lowest: North Macedonia at 8 600 euro per inhabitant.
- Cross-country mean 37 723 euro per inhabitant, standard deviation 25 545, coefficient of variation 67.7% across 31 reporting countries.
- Aggregate change 2013→2024: +63.9% on a constant panel of 31 countries.
How wide is the output gap between European regions? Eurostat dataset nama_10r_2gdp reports regional output per inhabitant and territorial convergence for 31 reporting countries, with 2024 as the most recent period carrying broad coverage. The European aggregate stands at 39 900 euro per inhabitant. Regional GDP per inhabitant remains the single most-used allocation criterion in cohesion policy, and its dispersion measures how far convergence has actually travelled.
The five highest values in 2024 are recorded by Luxembourg (127 000), Ireland (104 500), Denmark (65 700), Netherlands (62 400), Austria (53 800), all expressed in euro per inhabitant. At the opposite end of the distribution sit North Macedonia (8 600), Montenegro (12 300), Serbia (12 600), Türkiye (14 100), Bulgaria (16 300). The ratio between the highest and the lowest observation is 14.77, while the median country reports 29 400 euro per inhabitant against a mean of 37 723 euro per inhabitant.
Dispersion is wide: the standard deviation across countries is 25 545 euro per inhabitant, giving a coefficient of variation of 67.7%. 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 2013 and 2024 the summed value across the 31 countries reporting in both periods moved by +63.9%. The largest relative increases are observed in Bulgaria (+176.3%), Ireland (+163.9%), Romania (+158.3%); the largest decreases, or the smallest increases, in Sweden (+14.8%), Finland (+31.3%), France (+31.9%). Because the panel is held constant, this change is not an artefact of countries entering or leaving the sample.
Higher values are the policy-preferred direction for this indicator, so the countries listed at the bottom of the distribution mark the effective size of the European gap: closing it to the level of the fifth-ranked country would require the lowest performer to move by 45 200 euro per inhabitant. 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 nama_10r_2gdp ('Gross domestic product (GDP) at current market prices by NUTS 2 region'), extracted from the Eurostat dissemination API (JSON-stat 2.0) on the dataset update of 2026-02-10. Filter dimensions: unit=EUR_HAB. Unit of measure: euro per inhabitant. Reference period: 2024. Geographic perimeter: national reporting units with two-character geo codes (31 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.