Public spending on education was 4.6% of the EU’s GDP

In 2022, public spending on education (from pre-primary to the tertiary level) in the EU accounted for 4.6% of its gross domestic product (GDP). This figure represents a decrease of 0.3 percentage points (pp) from the previous year and 0.4 pp from 2020 (5.0%), the year with the highest level of public expenditure on education since the data collection started in 2012.

When examining spending across the different educational levels, as defined by the International standard classification of education (ISCED), the largest share of expenditure on education was allocated to tertiary education (1.2% of the GDP) and the smallest to pre-primary education (0.6%).

Source dataset: educ_uoe_fine06

The highest level of public expenditure on education relative to the GDP among the EU countries was observed in Sweden (6.9%), followed by Belgium (6.2%) and Finland (5.9%). The lowest levels were registered in Romania (2.9%), Croatia (3.1%) and Greece (3.4%).