Greece Is the Only EU Country Where Households Spend More Than They Earn
Greece is the only country in the European Union where households are spending more than they make, according to the latest OECD data. The net household savings rate sits at -9.3% in Greece, making it a stark outlier against the EU average of 8.1%.
Sweden and Hungary top the EU savings table, both at 14.7%. France, Germany, Czech Republic, and the Netherlands all exceed 10%. Greece sits alone in negative territory, a position it has essentially not escaped since the 2010 debt crisis.
At its worst, in 2013, the Greek household savings rate crashed to -16.5%.
At its worst, in 2013, the Greek household savings rate crashed to -16.5%. It briefly climbed back toward zero in 2021, then fell again to -12.2% in 2022. It has hovered around -9% ever since, weighed down by the cost of living surge and wages that remain well below the EU average.
According to Eurostat, Greece is among the EU countries where adjusted gross household income per capita in 2024 was more than 20% below the EU average. That gap between earnings and expenses is what forces households to either draw down savings they may not have or borrow to cover everyday costs.
Michalis Haliassos, professor at Goethe University Frankfurt, told Euronews Business that Greece already had the highest share of households spending beyond their income at the peak of the debt crisis in 2015, and ranked second only to Romania around 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Researchers Charles Yuji Horioka and Luigi Ventura, writing for the National Bureau of Economic Research in 2025, found that retirement planning and precautionary saving are the dominant drivers of household saving across Europe, partly because public social security systems are not fully adequate to cover people's needs.
Latvia sits at exactly 0%, meaning households there spend every cent they earn. Slovakia, Estonia, Portugal, and Lithuania all come in below 4%.
