Comparison of changes in volume of GDP in EU member states, Q4 2025 (first estimate), year 2025

Released: 9 February 2026

The economic performance of the European Union increased by 1.4% – according to seasonally and calendar adjusted data available from a preliminary Eurostat flash estimate – in the 4th quarter of 2025 compared to the same period of the previous year. Eurostat published data for 15 member states on 30 January 2026, out of which the volume of GDP went up in 14. The largest growths (of 6.7% and 2.6%, respectively) occurred in Ireland and Spain, and the volume of GDP was unchanged in Finland compared to the 4th quarter of the previous year. The volume of GDP grew to a lower extent in Hungary than the EU average. The performance of Hungary’s economy was 0.5% higher according to the seasonally and calendar adjusted datum and 0.7% higher according to the raw (unadjusted) datum than in the corresponding period of the previous year. The largest contributors to GDP growth in Hungary were the performance of services, within which mainly financial and insurance activities and wholesale and retail trade, as well as that of construction, and the economic performance was slowed down mostly by a fall in industry.

Compared to the previous quarter, the volume of the EU’s GDP was up by 0.3%, that of Hungary’s and another four countries’ (Austria, France, Belgium and Sweden) at a lower rate, by 0.2%, the volume of Estonia’s was unchanged and that of Ireland’s decreased by 0.6%.

In 2025 as a whole, the EU’s economic performance was 1.6% and Hungary’s 0.3% higher (0.4% higher according to the unadjusted, raw datum) than in the previous year. 13 member states’ annual data were available on 30 January 2026, out of which the economic performance grew at the highest rates in Ireland (13.3%) and Spain (2.8%), and the lowest increases were measured for Hungary (0.3%) and Finland (0.1%).

In its forecast published in November 2025, the European Commission predicted a GDP growth of 2.3% for Hungary and of 1.4% for the European Union as a whole for 2026. The domestic economic policy counts on a similar rate of increase: the National Bank of Hungary anticipated a 2.4% rise in the economic performance for 2026 in its inflation report in December 2025.