Greece continues to rank among the European Union's highest consumers of tobacco and nicotine products, underscoring the country's enduring public health challenge despite a modest decline in smoking rates over recent years.
According to Eurostat's 2025 data, 22.6% of people aged 16 and older in Greece use tobacco or related nicotine products every day, including cigarettes, e-cigarettes, heated tobacco products and nicotine pouches. The figure is well above the EU average of 16.5%. Among the bloc's 27 member states, Greece ranks fourth, behind only Bulgaria, where daily use stands at 26.3%, Sweden at 23.9% and Croatia at 23.6%. At the other end of the spectrum, the Netherlands reports the lowest rate at 9.9%, followed by Ireland at 11.7%, Belgium at 13.6% and Luxembourg at 13.8% - roughly half Greece's level.
The latest figures nevertheless point to a gradual improvement. Daily tobacco and nicotine use in Greece has fallen from 24.2% in 2022 to 22.6% in 2025, a decline of 1.6 percentage points. Even so, the reduction has not been enough to move the country out of the EU's highest-ranking group or bring it closer to the European average.
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Across the European Union, about one in six people aged 16 or older now report using tobaccoor related nicotine products every day, down from 17.5% in 2022. At the same time, 77.5% of Europeans said they either do not use such products or had not used them during the 12 months preceding the survey, suggesting a gradual shift away from daily consumption.
The data also highlight wide disparities across the bloc. Alongside Bulgaria, Sweden, Croatia and Greece, relatively high rates were recorded in Cyprus, where daily use matched Greece's 22.6%, and Austria at 19.6%. France and Latvia also posted rates close to 19%. By contrast, several countries in Western and Northern Europe continue to report significantly lower levels of daily use, illustrating the uneven progress the EU has made in reducing tobacco consumption.
Eurostat found that 17 of the EU's 27 member states recorded declines in daily tobacco use between 2022 and 2025. Spain and Luxembourg posted the sharpest reductions, while Croatia and Lithuania registered the largest increases over the same period.
