Long Working Hours in Europe by Country (2025)
Share of employed people usually working 49 hours or more a week across 30 European countries in 2025: 12.6% in Iceland at the top, 0.3% in Bulgaria at the bottom. Eurostat labour force survey.
Data
| # | Country | % of employed | Change vs 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Iceland | 12.6 | -0.5pp |
| 2 | Greece | 11.8 | -0.9pp |
| 3 | France | 9.4 | -0.3pp |
| 4 | Cyprus | 9.1 | -0.9pp |
| 5 | Portugal | 9 | -0.2pp |
| 6 | Belgium | 8.5 | +0.2pp |
| 7 | Ireland | 7.8 | +0.1pp |
| 8 | Austria | 7.7 | unchanged |
| 9 | Italy | 7 | -0.8pp |
| 10 | Switzerland | 6.7 | -0.2pp |
| 11 | Poland | 6.6 | -0.4pp |
| 12 | Czechia | 6.5 | -0.4pp |
| 13 | Sweden | 6.3 | -0.4pp |
| 14 | Slovakia | 6.2 | +0.2pp |
| 15 | Spain | 6 | -0.4pp |
| 16 | Luxembourg | 5.9 | -0.4pp |
| 17 | Malta | 5.6 | +0.7pp |
| 18 | Finland | 5.2 | unchanged |
| 19 | Norway | 5 | +0.1pp |
| 20 | Germany | 4.9 | -0.2pp |
| 21 | Netherlands | 4.9 | -0.3pp |
| 22 | Slovenia | 4.6 | -0.8pp |
| 23 | Denmark | 4.2 | -0.2pp |
| 24 | Croatia | 2.8 | -0.3pp |
| 25 | Hungary | 2.2 | -0.2pp |
| 26 | Estonia | 1.9 | -0.3pp |
| 27 | Romania | 1.4 | -0.4pp |
| 28 | Lithuania | 1 | -0.3pp |
| 29 | Latvia | 0.9 | unchanged |
| 30 | Bulgaria | 0.3 | -0.1pp |
About this Dataset
12.6% of employed people in Iceland usually work 49 hours or more a week, against 0.3% in Bulgaria. The panel average of 5.7% sits below the median of 6.0%, pulled down by a cluster of central and eastern European countries reporting shares under two percent.
Forty-nine hours is above the 48-hour weekly average that the EU Working Time Directive sets as a ceiling. Most of the people counted here sit outside it: the self-employed, whom the directive does not cover, and managers whose contracts measure days rather than hours.
Iceland, Greece, France and Cyprus lead. Labour law is a weak guide to this ordering, because long hours are concentrated among the self-employed and among managers whose contracts count days rather than hours. France is the entry that confounds expectations most: third at 9.4% in the country of the 35-hour week, because the statutory week binds employees on hourly contracts and leaves the self-employed and forfait-jours managers untouched.
The bottom of the table is best read as a lower bound. Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania report under two percent, and these are labour markets where nearly all of the employed are employees on statutory contracts, and where long hours worked in second jobs or informally are unlikely to surface in a survey question about usual hours in the main job. Set the table against the remote-work ranking and the two do not line up: Iceland is 13th of 30 on working from home and first here, the Netherlands seventh of 30 on working from home and 21st here, and France tenth of 30 on working from home and third here. The panel average moved -0.3pp on 2024 and the 8-year window shows a slow, broad decline.
Every row is the figure published for 2025; no value is carried over from an adjacent year to fill a gap. The chart covers the same 30 countries in every year from 2018, so the line moves because the countries moved, not because the sample changed. The indicator is Eurostat LFSA_QOE_3A2: employed persons usually working 49 hours or more per week in their main job, as a share of total employment. Hours worked in second jobs are excluded and the series begins in 2018.
Country pages: Iceland · Greece · France · Cyprus · Portugal · Belgium · Ireland · Austria · Italy · Switzerland · Poland · Czechia · Sweden · Slovakia · Spain · Luxembourg · Malta · Finland · Norway · Germany · Netherlands · Slovenia · Denmark · Croatia · Hungary · Estonia · Romania · Lithuania · Latvia · Bulgaria