Bucharest, June 21, 2025 – RBJ – In international comparisons of national accounts data, such as GDP per capita, it is desirable not only to express the figures in a common currency, but also to adjust for differences in price levels. Failing to do so would result in an overestimation of GDP levels for countries with high price levels, relative to countries with low price levels.
Countries’ volume indices of GDP per capita for the years 2014-2024 are shown in Table 1. The dispersion in GDP per capita across the EU countries is quite remarkable. Luxembourg had the highest GDP per capita among all the 36 countries included in this comparison, being well above the EU average in 2024 (by 2.4 times). This is partly explained by the fact that a large number of foreign residents are employed in the country and thus contribute to its GDP, while they are not part of Luxembourg’s resident population. Their consumption expenditure is recorded in the national accounts of their country of residence. The high level of GDP per capita in Ireland can be partly explained by the presence of large multinational companies holding intellectual property. The associated contract manufacturing with these assets contributes to GDP, while a large part of the income earned from this production is returned to the companies’ ultimate owners abroad.
In 2024, Ireland ranked second among the EU countries, with a GDP per capita that was 111% above the EU average, followed by the Netherlands and Denmark, each with a GDP per capita more than 20% above the average. The EFTA countries Norway, Switzerland and Iceland had levels of GDP per capita that were 63%, 51% and 32% above the EU average, respectively.
Belgium, Austria, Germany, Sweden, Malta and Finland were the other EU countries with GDP per capita above the EU average. France, Italy, Cyprus, Spain, Czechia and Slovenia had GDP per capita levels that were less than 10% below the EU average, while Lithuania, Portugal had GDP per capita that were between 10% and 20% below the average. Estonia, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Croatia, Slovakia, Latvia, the candidate country Türkiye and the EU country Greece had GDP per capita that were between 20% and 30% below the EU average. Bulgaria had a GDP per capita that was 34% below the average. The candidate country Montenegro was placed at 46% below the EU average, followed by Serbia, North Macedonia, Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Table 1 shows a relative stability in the ranking of countries by GDP per capita volume index between 2014 and 2024. Among the EU countries, Luxembourg had the highest volume index over the whole period and Bulgaria the lowest. However, the dispersion decreased over this period, in 2014 the highest GDP per capita was 6 times higher than the lowest, whereas in 2024 it was lowered to almost 4 times.
Relative volumes of consumption per capita
While GDP is mainly an indicator of the level of economic activity, actual individual consumption (AIC) is an alternative indicator better adapted to describe the material welfare of households.
Countries’ volume in
dices of AIC per capita can be found in Table 2. Generally, levels of AIC per capita are more homogeneous than GDP but still there are substantial differences across the EU countries.
In 2024, Luxembourg had the highest level of AIC per capita among all 36 countries included in this comparison, at 41% above the EU average. It was followed by the EFTA country Norway, with an AIC per capita of 24% above the EU average. While Luxembourg and Ireland were outstanding among EU countries in terms of GDP, this was less so for AIC. As mentioned in the previous section, one reason for this is that cross-border workers contribute to GDP in Luxembourg while their consumption expenditure is recorded in the national accounts of the country of their residence. Ireland, with the second highest level of GDP per capita in the EU, had an AIC per capita of 1% below the EU average.
As in the case of the volume index of GDP per capita, the ranking of countries in terms of the volume index of AIC per capita shows relative stability between 2014 and 2024. Luxembourg had the highest volume index among the EU countries over the whole period. In contrast, Bulgaria had the lowest volume index for the entire period, except in 2024, when Hungary took this position for the first time since 2014. Similar to GDP, the dispersion over time has decreased: in 2014, the highest volume index of AIC per capita was nearly 3 times higher than the lowest, while in 2024, this difference was reduced to twice as high.
