Today, the European Commission released the final figures on road fatalities for 2025, reporting 19,350 deaths due to road crashes. This represents a 3% decrease from 2024 and a 15% decrease from 2019, equivalent to 580 fewer deaths on European roads compared to 2024, and 3,400 fewer deaths compared to 2019. While this significant achievement reaffirms the EU's position as one of the world's safest regions for road travel, the majority of Member States are not yet on track to meet the EU target of halving road deaths and serious injuries by 2030.
Results confirm that only five countries are on course to meet the 50% reduction target in road deaths by 2030: Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Poland and Romania. Despite their progress since 2019, Bulgaria and Romania, alongside Croatia, continue to have the highest fatality rates in the EU when measuring deaths per million inhabitants (71, 68 and 65 deaths per million). On the opposite end of the ranking, Sweden and Denmark report the lowest fatality rates, with 19 and 24 deaths per million inhabitants respectively.
Based on the reported data, elderly people are more often victims of road crashes than other age groups, while passenger cars and vulnerable road users such as pedestrians, cyclists and motorcycle users and are the most exposed to road casualties. Finally, most road deaths happen in rural roads outside urban areas.
For every road fatality, an estimated five people are seriously injured. This means that around 100 thousand people across the EU suffer serious injuries in road crashes each year, with serious implications on physical, psychological, and socioeconomic wellbeing for the victims and their families.
The figures published today reveal the final numbers of road fatalities for 2025, following the publication of preliminary data in March 2026.
Apostolos Tzitzikostas, European Commissioner for Sustainable Transport and Tourism, said: "Road safety is about more than rules and regulations. It is about protecting lives and preventing tragedies that affect families and communities across Europe. In the European Union, every life lost on our roads is one too many. Our goal is clear: to ensure that every citizen, wherever they travel and whatever their mode of transport, can reach their destination. This means making our roads safer, strengthening prevention and ensuring that every journey ends safely."
Provisional data shows that the number of countries reporting a reduction of fatalities above 5% in the first half of 2026 compared to the same period in 2025 is higher than those which report increases in road deaths, hinting a positive signal for the EU in reducing road fatalities in 2026. These provisional figures should, however, be interpreted with caution. In some countries, due to small numbers, these figures are subject to significant year-on-year fluctuations. Furthermore, road fatalities are subject to seasonality, with higher incidence of crashes over the summer period.
The European Commission will continue to monitor these trends closely and support Member States in addressing emerging concerns.
The 2026 EU Road Safety Conference will take place on 23 November 2026, at the Charlemagne Building in Brussels. This flagship event marks the halfway point in Europe’s 10-year strategy to halve road deaths and serious injuries by 2030 and will bring together policymakers, researchers, civil society leaders, and the private sector to explore the future of safe road transport in the EU. Discussion will focus on critical emerging issues, such as the use of health data for road safety, the rise of connected and automated vehicles, as well as the growing importance of data driven policy and decision making.
During the event, the Commission will also announce the winners of the 2026 Excellence in Road Safety Awards, celebrating the continent’s most inspiring and impactful road safety initiatives.
In 2018, the EU set itself a 50% reduction target for road deaths and serious injuries by 2030, while aiming to reach close to zero road deaths by 2050 (‘Vision Zero’). The Commission published a report on the Implementation of the EU Road Safety Policy Framework at the Mid-Point in 2026. The report confirms that significant progress has been made in reducing road fatalities, but the current pace is still insufficient.
Road safety is a shared responsibility between the EU and Member States. While national and local authorities carry out most of the day-to-day work, the EU contributes with safety rules for infrastructure and vehicles and for driving testing and licencing, coordinates cross-border cooperation between authorities and efforts to exchange best practices, and funds road safety projects. Recent EU-level initiatives include updated requirements for driving licences and better cross-border enforcement of road traffic rules and a proposal to enhance the roadworthiness of vehicles.
Today’s figures are based on final data for 2025 submitted to the Commission by EU Member States for the CARE database of Road Accidents in the EU, and from national sources otherwise, some of them still provisional and subject to possible revisions. The preliminary statistics for the full year 2026 will be published in March 2027.
| 2025 data | 2026 data (first six months) | |||||
| Absolute number | Rate per million population | % change in absolute number in 2025 in relation to: | Trend in relation to same period in: | |||
| 2025 | 2025 | 2024 | 2019 | Average 2017-19 | 2025 | |
| EU-27 | 19350 | 43 | -3% | -15% | -16% | - |
| Belgium | 464 | 39 | -1% | -28% | -25% | ↑ |
| Bulgaria | 456 | 71 | -5% | -27% | -29% | ↑↑ |
| Czechia | 477 | 44 | -3% | -23% | -23% | -* |
| Denmark | 143 | 24 | -1% | -28% | -21% | ↓↓ |
| Germany | 2832 | 34 | 2% | -7% | -11% | ↓ |
| Estonia | 43 | 31 | -38% | -17% | -23% | ↑↑* |
| Ireland | 182 | 33 | 6% | 30% | 28% | ↑↑* |
| Greece | 518 | 50 | -22% | -25% | -27% | ↓↓ |
| Spain | 1775 | 36 | -1% | 1% | -1% | ↓ |
| France | 3263 | 49 | 3% | 1% | -1% | ↑ |
| Croatia | 261 | 67 | 9% | -12% | -17% | ↓↓ |
| Italy | 2868 | 49 | -5% | -10% | -13% | ↓ |
| Cyprus | 45 | 45 | 10% | -13% | -12% | ↓↓* |
| Latvia | 118 | 64 | 5% | -11% | -15% | ↓↓ |
| Lithuania | 138 | 48 | 11% | -26% | -25% | ↓↓ |
| Luxembourg | 29 | 42 | 61% | 32% | 5% | ↓* |
| Hungary | 456 | 48 | -8% | -24% | -26% | ↓↓ |
| Malta | 19 | 33 | 58% | 19% | 8% | ↓↓* |
| Netherlands | 612 | 34 | 8% | 4% | 7% | - |
| Austria | 403 | 44 | 15% | -3% | -2% | ↓ |
| Poland | 1660 | 46 | -12% | -43% | -42% | ↓ |
| Portugal | 578 | 51 | -6% | -16% | -13% | ↑↑ |
| Romania | 1296 | 68 | -12% | -30% | -32% | ↓↓ |
| Slovenia | 92 | 43 | 35% | -10% | -7% | ↑↑ |
| Slovakia | 227 | 42 | -13% | -16% | -16% | ↑↑ |
| Finland | 193 | 34 | 7% | -9% | -16% | ↓↓* |
| Sweden | 203 | 19 | -5% | -8% | -24% | ↓↓ |
| Switzerland | 214 | 24 | -14% | 14% | -1% | -* |
| Iceland | 10 | 26 | -23% | 67% | -25% | ↓↓* |
| Norway | 106 | 19 | 22% | -2% | -1% | ↑↑* |
| Serbia | 488 | 75 | -5% | -9% | -12% | ↓↓ |
| Source: EU CARE database on road crashes (for 2025, validated at the time of publication: BE, CZ, DK, IE, FR, HR, CY, HU, LT, NL, AT, PL, SK, CH, IS, NO) and national sources for the remaining countries, which can be still provisional and subject to change. Evolution of fatalities for the 1st half of 2026 are all based on provisional data from national sources. Population data are from Eurostat. Notes: Figures are generally those as reported by police. The percentage changes in the table are based on the absolute number of fatalities, not the rate per million inhabitants. NL, the number of fatalities registered by the police is under-reported and equates to around 85-90% of the total number published nationally. In 2025, the overall total was 759. For Portugal, 2017 data do not include two NUTS regions (Azores and Madeira), which impacts slightly on the percentage change from 2017-2019. In Liechtenstein, there were 2 fatalities in 2025. |
| - | largely unchanged (+-5%) |
| ↓ | down, to a degree (>5-10%) |
| ↓↓ | down significantly (>10%) |
| ↑ | up, to a degree (>5-10%) |
| ↑↑ | up significantly (>10%) |
| * | the change in the absolute number of deaths was less than 10 |
