Almost half of household spending in the EU in January 2026 went on food and non-alcoholic beverages, housing costs such as water and energy, and transport.
Those three categories accounted for 46.0% of total household consumption expenditure across the bloc, Eurostat informed on Wednesday.
It added that the share of spending rose between January 2025 and January 2026 in three areas: recreation, sport and culture (up 1.2 percentage points), restaurants and accommodation services (up 0.3 percentage points) and education (up 0.1 percentage points).
Shifts in spending over the past year
The biggest falls over the same period were in transport (down 0.4 percentage points) and information and communication (down 0.3 percentage points).
The figures are published in Eurostat’s Key figures on Europe — 2026 edition, which brings together data on areas including society, the economy and the environment, the organisation said.
