EU countries imported €3,471 billion worth of services from non-EU countries in 2024.
Most of those service imports — 58.9% or €2,044 billion — came through “mode 3”, which means a foreign supplier delivered the service via a business presence inside the importing country, Eurostat informed on Tuesday.
“Mode 1”, cross-border supply where a service is delivered from abroad without the supplier setting up locally, accounted for 31.3% (€1,087 billion).
“Mode 2”, consumption abroad — such as residents buying services while travelling — made up 6.6% (€229 billion), while “mode 4”, the presence of natural persons delivering a service in person, accounted for 3.2% (€111 billion).
Differences between EU countries
In 22 EU countries, the largest share of service imports came through mode 3, according to the data.
The highest shares for mode 3 were recorded in Bulgaria (81.7%), Hungary (78.1%) and Spain (74.5%).
Mode 1 was the dominant channel in Greece, where it accounted for 68.8% of imports, while Cyprus (43.8%), Sweden (37.7%) and Denmark (37.4%) also reported high shares.
Mode 2 accounted for 22.3% of service imports in Denmark, with France (12.1%), Lithuania (10.8%), Croatia (10.4%) and Italy (10.3%) also above 10%.
Mode 4 had its highest shares in Cyprus and Denmark (7.3% each) and Belgium (5.4%).
