Fatal Accidents at Work in Europe by Country (2024)
Fatal workplace accidents per 100,000 workers across 26 European countries in 2024, highest to lowest: 4.4 in France down to 0.4 in Netherlands. Eurostat incidence rates.
Data
| # | Country | per 100,000 workers | Change vs 2023 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | France | 4.4 | +0.1 |
| 2 | Bulgaria | 3.9 | -0.5 |
| 3 | Latvia | 3.9 | -0.6 |
| 4 | Romania | 3.3 | +0.3 |
| 5 | Portugal | 3.2 | -0.2 |
| 6 | Estonia | 3.2 | +1.4 |
| 7 | Croatia | 3.2 | -0.1 |
| 8 | Lithuania | 3.1 | -0.2 |
| 9 | Italy | 2.6 | unchanged |
| 10 | Hungary | 2.5 | +0.5 |
| 11 | Spain | 2.5 | +0.2 |
| 12 | Poland | 2.1 | +0.7 |
| 13 | Czechia | 1.9 | -0.1 |
| 14 | Malta | 1.9 | -0.5 |
| 15 | Finland | 1.9 | +0.5 |
| 16 | Slovenia | 1.9 | -1.1 |
| 17 | Greece | 1.8 | -0.2 |
| 18 | Norway | 1.4 | -0.7 |
| 19 | Belgium | 1.3 | -0.3 |
| 20 | Cyprus | 1.3 | -2.7 |
| 21 | Slovakia | 1.2 | -0.2 |
| 22 | Sweden | 1.1 | -0.4 |
| 23 | Denmark | 1 | -0.3 |
| 24 | Luxembourg | 0.9 | -1.9 |
| 25 | Germany | 0.8 | -0.1 |
| 26 | Netherlands | 0.4 | -0.1 |
About this Dataset
France records 4.4 fatal accidents at work per 100,000 workers in 2024; Netherlands records 0.4. Before reading that as a 11-to-one difference in how safely work is done, it is worth being clear about what the two numbers count.
Levels in this table are only partly comparable. Trends within a country are fully comparable. Each national system applies its own test for whether a death is work-related, and that test is stable over time, so a country's own series carries far more signal than its rank does.
Sector mix does most of the honest work in the ordering. Construction, agriculture, forestry and road transport account for a disproportionate share of workplace deaths in every country that reports, so an economy weighted toward them posts a higher all-sector rate without any site being run less carefully. That accounts for much of the upper half: France, Bulgaria, Latvia and Romania lead the table. At the other end, Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg and Denmark combine service-heavy employment with highly automated manufacturing, and the median country sits at 1.9.
France at 4.4 against Germany at 0.8 is the comparison that most needs the caveat, because sector structure does not explain a factor of 5.4 between two neighbouring economies with comparable safety regulation. The French scheme recognises a wider set of events occurring in the course of work than the German one does, and the difference in recognition rules is probably worth more of that gap than any difference in site practice. The panel average is 2.2, -0.2 on 2023, and the 15-year panel points steadily downward — driven as much by the shrinking share of European employment in high-risk sectors as by regulation.
Every row is the figure published for 2024; no value is carried over from an adjacent year to fill a gap. Austria, Iceland, Ireland and Switzerland have not published a 2024 figure and are left out rather than carried forward from an older year. The chart covers the same 26 countries in every year from 2010, so the line moves because the countries moved, not because the sample changed. The indicator is Eurostat's incidence rate (HSW_N2_02) for the all-sector NACE aggregate A_C-N, counting accidents at work that cause death within one year and excluding commuting accidents. Because national recognition and reporting practice differ materially, cross-country levels should be treated as indicative and within-country trends as the reliable comparison.
Country pages: France · Bulgaria · Latvia · Romania · Portugal · Estonia · Croatia · Lithuania · Italy · Hungary · Spain · Poland · Czechia · Malta · Finland · Slovenia · Greece · Norway · Belgium · Cyprus · Slovakia · Sweden · Denmark · Luxembourg · Germany · Netherlands