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Life expectancy in Europe by country

Life expectancy: all 39 European countries ranked from highest to lowest, with the change on the year before and the EU median. Updated from official sources.

  • Switzerland ranks first at 84.4 yrs, ahead of Sweden (84.1 yrs) and Italy (84.0 yrs).
  • At the other end is Moldova at 71.3 yrs.
  • The median EU country sits at 82.0 yrs.
  • Since 2023, North Macedonia rose the most (75.3 yrs to 76.6 yrs) and Malta fell the most (83.4 yrs to 83.0 yrs).
Life expectancy, 2024, highest first
RankCountryLife expectancyChange on 2023
11Switzerland84.4 yrs+0.3 yrs
22Sweden84.1 yrs+0.8 yrs
3Japan84.0 yrs±0.0 yrs
34Italy84.0 yrs+0.6 yrs
45Spain83.9 yrs±0.0 yrs
6South Korea83.6 yrs+0.2 yrs
7Singapore83.3 yrs+0.2 yrs
58Luxembourg83.2 yrs−0.1 yrs
69Norway83.2 yrs+0.1 yrs
10United Arab Emirates83.1 yrs+0.2 yrs
11Australia83.1 yrs±0.0 yrs
712Ireland83.0 yrs+0.2 yrs
813France83.0 yrs+0.1 yrs
914Malta83.0 yrs−0.4 yrs
1015Iceland82.8 yrs+0.4 yrs
1116Portugal82.4 yrs+0.1 yrs
1217Finland82.3 yrs+0.8 yrs
1318Belgium82.3 yrs−0.1 yrs
1419Slovenia82.3 yrs+0.4 yrs
1520Denmark82.3 yrs+0.5 yrs
21Canada82.1 yrs+0.5 yrs
1622Austria82.0 yrs+0.2 yrs
1723Netherlands82.0 yrs+0.1 yrs
1824Greece81.8 yrs+0.1 yrs
1925Cyprus81.8 yrs+0.2 yrs
2026United Kingdom81.4 yrs+0.1 yrs
2127Germany80.8 yrs−0.2 yrs
2228Czechia80.0 yrs+0.2 yrs
2329Albania79.8 yrs+0.2 yrs
2430Estonia79.3 yrs+0.5 yrs
31Saudi Arabia79.0 yrs+0.3 yrs
2532Croatia78.9 yrs+0.5 yrs
33United States78.9 yrs+0.5 yrs
2634Poland78.4 yrs+0.2 yrs
2735Slovakia78.4 yrs+0.3 yrs
2836Bosnia and Herzegovina78.0 yrs+0.2 yrs
37China78.0 yrs+0.1 yrs
2938Montenegro77.9 yrs+0.3 yrs
3039Turkey77.4 yrs+0.3 yrs
3140Lithuania77.2 yrs−0.1 yrs
3241Hungary76.7 yrs+0.2 yrs
3342North Macedonia76.6 yrs+1.3 yrs
3443Romania76.5 yrs+0.1 yrs
3544Latvia76.4 yrs+1.0 yrs
45Brazil76.0 yrs+0.2 yrs
3646Serbia76.0 yrs−0.2 yrs
3747Bulgaria75.8 yrs±0.0 yrs
48Mexico75.3 yrs+0.2 yrs
3849Ukraine74.7 yrs+1.3 yrs
50India72.2 yrs+0.2 yrs
3951Moldova71.3 yrs+0.1 yrs
52Indonesia71.3 yrs+0.1 yrs

Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators.

Compare any two countries side by side →

Methodology

Inflation, unemployment and the minimum wage come from Eurostat and rank the latest period with figures for at least 80% of the countries Eurostat currently covers. Countries report on different days, and ranking the very latest month would leave out everyone who has not yet published. Inflation is the annual rate of the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP); unemployment is the seasonally adjusted rate for people aged 15–74, on the ILO definition; the minimum wage is the gross monthly statutory rate in euros, published twice a year. The EU figure on these pages is Eurostat's own, weighted for the whole union. The change column compares with the month before, or for the minimum wage with the same half-year a year earlier. Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Austria, Italy, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland have no statutory minimum wage — pay floors are set by collective agreements — and are named below that table rather than ranked. Eurostat does not cover every European country, and has not covered the United Kingdom since 2020; those countries are named rather than ranked.

The other twelve rankings use one year for every country: the latest year, up to last year, for which at least 80% of the 52 listed countries have figures, so that no country is ranked against another country's older number and the IMF's projections for the current year are never used. GDP, GDP per person, real growth, government debt and population come from the IMF World Economic Outlook, revised each April and October; figures for the most recent year are partly IMF estimates. Life expectancy, urban population, internet use, land area and CO₂ emissions per person (excluding land use) come from the World Bank's World Development Indicators. The Human Development Index is published by the UN Development Programme and taken from Our World in Data. Population density is population divided by land area. Money figures are in current US dollars at market exchange rates, not adjusted for purchasing power.

The European ranking covers the EU-27, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Turkey and the EU candidate countries in the Western Balkans, Moldova and Ukraine: 39 countries. Where a source also covers large economies elsewhere, a wider view adds them for context. Rankings run from the highest figure to the lowest, which is not always the best: first place in unemployment or government debt is the highest rate, not the lowest. The EU median on the annual rankings is the middle EU country's figure, not an EU-wide average.

Eurostat figures are checked every day and the annual figures every week, and the pages rebuild whenever one of them changes. Eurostat, World Bank and Our World in Data figures are published under CC BY 4.0; the IMF figures are used under the IMF's terms of use.

Sources

Cite this as: News Unlimited, “Country rankings: Europe on 15 indicators”.