Methodology & Data Sources
Every figure on our country and ranking pages comes from Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. This page explains exactly which datasets we use, how the rankings are built, and where the numbers stop being a reliable guide.
What we use
Indicators and sources
Each indicator is a national average for the latest year Eurostat had published when this page was compiled. Some indicators carry more than one year because Eurostat releases them on different schedules; in every case we use the most recent value available per country.
| Indicator | What it measures | Eurostat dataset | Year(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price level | Comparative price level of consumer goods and services (EU=100). | prc_ppp_ind | 2024 |
| Household electricity | Average household electricity price per kWh. | nrg_pc_204 | 2025-S1, 2025-S2 |
| Housing cost overburden | Share of people spending over 40% of disposable income on housing. | ilc_lvho07a | 2020, 2024, 2025 |
| Housing overcrowding | Share of people living in overcrowded households. | ilc_lvho05a | 2020, 2024, 2025 |
| Net salary (single) | Net annual earnings of a single worker on an average wage. | earn_nt_net | 2023, 2025 |
| Tax wedge on labour | Tax wedge on labour: income tax plus social contributions as a share of labour cost (single worker). | earn_nt_taxwedge | 2023, 2025 |
| Unemployment | Annual unemployment rate. | une_rt_a | 2024, 2025 |
| Employment rate | Employment rate, ages 20 to 64. | lfsi_emp_a | 2024, 2025 |
| Minimum wage (gross) | Statutory gross monthly minimum wage, where one exists. | earn_mw_cur | 2026-S1 |
| GDP per capita | GDP per capita in purchasing power standards (EU=100). | tec00114 | 2024, 2025 |
| Homicide rate | Intentional homicides per 100,000 inhabitants. | crim_off_cat | 2024 |
| Perceived crime | Share of people reporting crime, violence or vandalism in their area. | ilc_mddw03 | 2020, 2023 |
| Life expectancy | Life expectancy at birth, in years. | demo_mlexpec | 2024 |
| Unmet healthcare need | Share reporting an unmet need for medical care (cost, distance or waiting time). | hlth_silc_08 | 2020, 2024, 2025 |
| Life satisfaction | Average self-reported life satisfaction, scale 0 to 10. | ilc_pw01 | 2018, 2024, 2025 |
| At-risk-of-poverty | At-risk-of-poverty rate after social transfers. | ilc_li02 | 2020, 2024, 2025 |
| Income inequality (Gini) | Gini coefficient of equivalised disposable income (0 to 100). | ilc_di12 | 2020, 2024, 2025 |
| Broadband coverage | Share of households with broadband internet access. | isoc_ci_in_h | 2021, 2025 |
Dataset codes can be looked up directly in the Eurostat data browser at ec.europa.eu/eurostat. Eurostat data is freely reusable with attribution.
How the rankings work
Two kinds of ranking
Single-metric lists (for example the safest or most affordable countries) simply sort every European country on one Eurostat indicator, lowest or highest first depending on what “better” means for that measure. No weighting or adjustment is applied.
The “best countries to live” list uses a composite livability score. For each country we calculate its percentile rank on six indicators, price level, net salary, life satisfaction, life expectancy, employment rate and the homicide rate, then average those ranks into a single 0 to 100 score where higher is better. It is a deliberately simple, transparent blend rather than a weighted index, so you can see exactly what drives it.
Where the numbers stop
Limitations
These are national averages. Real life happens in a city or a region, and rents, salaries and even safety vary far more within a country than these figures can show, so treat every number as a starting point rather than a personal forecast. Net salary and disposable income are expressed in comparable terms, but a nominal wage still stretches differently depending on the local price level, which is why we always show the two together. Indicators come from different years, so a country’s overall picture mixes the most recent release for each measure. And a single metric, however clean, is never the whole story: use the rankings to build a shortlist, then weigh cost, income and tax for the places that make your list.
Updates
How current this is
The pages reflect the latest Eurostat releases available on 2026-06-08. Eurostat refreshes most of these datasets once or twice a year; when new figures publish, the country pages and rankings are regenerated from the same sources.
All data: Eurostat (ec.europa.eu/eurostat), latest available years, national averages. Eurostat data is freely reusable with attribution. Compiled by the Norway editorial team.