Average of the panel (2024)
1.38
children per woman
-0.04 vs 2023
Highest
1.75
Montenegro
Lowest
1.01
Malta
Countries ranked
37
with a published figure

Data

Fertility Rate in Europe by Country (2024) — source data. Eurostat.
# Country children per woman Change vs 2023
1 Montenegro 1.8 unchanged
2 Bulgaria 1.7 -0.1
3 Georgia 1.7 unchanged
4 Albania 1.6 n/a
5 Serbia 1.6 unchanged
6 France 1.6 -0.1
7 Iceland 1.6 unchanged
8 Slovenia 1.5 unchanged
9 Turkey 1.5 unchanged
10 Denmark 1.5 unchanged
11 Ireland 1.5 unchanged
12 Croatia 1.5 unchanged
13 Slovakia 1.5 unchanged
14 Norway 1.5 +0.1
15 Belgium 1.4 unchanged
16 North Macedonia 1.4 -0.1
17 Netherlands 1.4 unchanged
18 Sweden 1.4 unchanged
19 Hungary 1.4 -0.1
20 Portugal 1.4 unchanged
21 Romania 1.4 -0.2
22 Cyprus 1.4 unchanged
23 Liechtenstein 1.4 -0.1
24 Czechia 1.4 -0.1
25 Germany 1.4 unchanged
26 Austria 1.3 unchanged
27 Switzerland 1.3 unchanged
28 Finland 1.3 unchanged
29 Luxembourg 1.3 unchanged
30 Greece 1.2 unchanged
31 Latvia 1.2 -0.1
32 Estonia 1.2 -0.1
33 Italy 1.2 unchanged
34 Poland 1.1 -0.1
35 Lithuania 1.1 -0.1
36 Spain 1.1 unchanged
37 Malta 1 -0.1

About this Dataset

Europe's fertility ranking has an unusual property: the top of it is still below replacement. Montenegro leads at 1.75 children per woman, 0.35 below the 2.1 needed to hold a population steady without migration. Malta sits at 1.01, less than half of replacement. The gap between the highest and lowest country is 0.74 children per woman — narrower than most cross-country economic spreads, because the whole distribution has compressed downward.

The panel average of 1.38 means the average European woman is having roughly two-thirds of the children needed to keep the population stable. Everything else in Europe's demographic arithmetic follows from that number: pension ratios, labour supply, migration politics.

The geography no longer matches the old north–south or east–west story. Montenegro, Bulgaria and Georgia lead the table, while Malta, Spain, Lithuania and Poland form the bottom. France, long the western European outlier on the high side, has slipped to 1.61, sixth in this table. What separates the top from the bottom now is less about welfare generosity than about the age at which women have a first child and how secure the labour market is at that age.

Every row is the figure published for 2024; no value is carried over from an adjacent year to fill a gap. The chart tracks a fixed panel of 34 countries: those reporting in every year from 2005. The line therefore moves because the countries moved, not because the sample changed. Eurostat harmonises the total fertility rate across reporting countries, so the figures are directly comparable.

Country pages: Montenegro · Bulgaria · Georgia · Albania · Serbia · France · Iceland · Slovenia · Turkey · Denmark · Ireland · Croatia · Slovakia · Norway · Belgium · North Macedonia · Netherlands · Sweden · Hungary · Portugal · Romania · Cyprus · Liechtenstein · Czechia · Germany · Austria · Switzerland · Finland · Luxembourg · Greece · Latvia · Estonia · Italy · Poland · Lithuania · Spain · Malta

Frequently Asked Questions

Montenegro, at 1.75 children per woman in 2024, followed by Bulgaria, Georgia and Albania. The ordering is worth reading carefully: the "highest" figure in Europe is still around a third below the 2.1 births per woman a population needs to replace itself without migration. No country in this ranking reaches replacement level.

Malta, at 1.01. The bottom of the table is dominated by southern and eastern Europe — Malta, Spain, Lithuania and Poland all sit below the 1.41 median. Spain and Italy in particular combine late family formation with weak entry-level pay and expensive housing, a combination that pushes first births past the point where a second becomes likely.

The panel average fell to 1.38 in 2024 from 1.42 a year earlier, continuing a decline that resumed after a brief pandemic-era pause. The proximate cause across most of the continent is postponement rather than childlessness: the mean age at first birth keeps rising, and births deferred into a woman's late thirties are less likely to be followed by a second or third. Cash transfers and parental-leave reforms have shown measurable but small effects on the timing of births; none of the large European pro-natalist programmes has moved a national rate back toward replacement.