Workplace Accidents in Europe by Country (2024)
Non-fatal accidents at work per 100,000 workers across 26 European countries in 2024: 2,958 in Portugal against 69 in Romania, a gap that says more about reporting than about safety. Eurostat data.
Data
| # | Country | per 100,000 workers | Change vs 2023 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Portugal | 2,958 | -9 |
| 2 | Spain | 2,616 | -74 |
| 3 | France | 2,475 | -87 |
| 4 | Denmark | 1,663 | +166 |
| 5 | Slovenia | 1,596 | +21 |
| 6 | Germany | 1,540 | -49 |
| 7 | Belgium | 1,530 | -47 |
| 8 | Luxembourg | 1,415 | -90 |
| 9 | Finland | 1,352 | -44 |
| 10 | Italy | 1,254 | -27 |
| 11 | Netherlands | 1,093 | -58 |
| 12 | Estonia | 900 | -46 |
| 13 | Sweden | 892 | -23 |
| 14 | Hungary | 728 | +36 |
| 15 | Czechia | 725 | -20 |
| 16 | Norway | 620 | +138 |
| 17 | Malta | 574 | +8 |
| 18 | Croatia | 472 | -97 |
| 19 | Poland | 472 | +4 |
| 20 | Slovakia | 429 | +5 |
| 21 | Cyprus | 356 | -8 |
| 22 | Latvia | 296 | -14 |
| 23 | Lithuania | 281 | -134 |
| 24 | Greece | 161 | +15 |
| 25 | Bulgaria | 97 | +5 |
| 26 | Romania | 69 | +6 |
About this Dataset
Portugal reports 2,958 non-fatal accidents at work per 100,000 workers in 2024. Romania reports 69. That is a ratio of roughly 43 to one between two members of the same single market, and no account of workplace safety produces a gap that size.
This is, to a first approximation, a ranking of reporting systems. Where a reported accident starts an insurance claim, accidents get reported. Where it starts an inspection, they do not.
The cross-check is the fatal-accident table, where a death is much harder to keep off the books. Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and Lithuania occupy the bottom four places here; several of them sit in the upper half of the fatal ranking. Read from the top down rather than the bottom up: Portugal, Spain and France lead at 2,475 per 100,000 and above, against a panel average of 1,022 and a median of 810, and their numbers are the ones most likely to reflect what actually happens on European worksites.
Year-on-year moves deserve the same scepticism. Denmark posts the largest increase in the table at +166 and Lithuania the largest fall at -134; moves of that size in a single year usually signal a change in claims or reporting practice rather than a sudden shift in physical risk. The panel average moved -16 on 2023, and over the 15-year window the aggregate has declined gradually, in line with the long-term shift of European employment out of manufacturing and construction.
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 HSW_N2_01: accidents at work causing four or more calendar days of absence, per 100,000 persons employed, for the all-sector NACE aggregate A_C-N, excluding commuting accidents. National reporting and compensation rules differ enough that cross-country levels are indicative only; each country own series is the sounder comparison.
Country pages: Portugal · Spain · France · Denmark · Slovenia · Germany · Belgium · Luxembourg · Finland · Italy · Netherlands · Estonia · Sweden · Hungary · Czechia · Norway · Malta · Croatia · Poland · Slovakia · Cyprus · Latvia · Lithuania · Greece · Bulgaria · Romania