These EU countries have the highest tax-to-GDP ratio

By Alessio Dell’Anna

Tax-to-GDP ratio has seen a slight decline across the EU in 2023. However, trends varied significantly amongst different countries.

Tax-to-GDP ratio is the weight of taxes and net social contributions on a country’s gross domestic product.

France saw the highest ratio (45.6%), followed by Belgium (44.8%) and Denmark (44.1%), according to the latest Eurostat data.

On the other side of the spectrum, the lowest ratios were reported in Ireland (22.7%), Romania (27.0%) and Malta (27.1%).

The EU average for 2023 was 40%, just 0.7% down from the previous year.

Tax-to-GDP ratio went up in 11 EU countries between 2022 and 2023.

The biggest increases were in Cyprus (+2.9%), Luxembourg (+2.6%), Ireland (+1.6%) and Denmark (+1.5%).

Greece (-2.1%), France (-2%) and Germany (-1.4%) saw the biggest reductions, with a total of 12 EU countries recording at least a 0.1% drop.

When it came to the eurozone alone, the tax-to-GDP ratio also decreased, down to 40.6% in 2023 compared to 41.4% the previous year.