Which EU Country Has the Safest Roads? 2024 Rates Ranked

Quick answer: 19,940 people died on roads in the European Union in 2024, according to the European Commission's final figures — 45 deaths per million inhabitants, 2% fewer than in 2023. Sweden has the safest roads in the EU at 20 deaths per million, while Romania has the most dangerous at 78 per million — nearly four times Sweden's rate. EU road deaths are 12% below the 2019 baseline, but that pace will not reach the goal of halving deaths by 2030.

How many people die on EU roads each year?

Final 2024 figures from the European Commission record 19,940 road deaths across the EU's 27 member states — 2% fewer than in 2023. The EU-wide death rate stands at 45 deaths per million inhabitants.

Preliminary figures for 2025, published by the Commission in March 2026, point to about 19,400 deaths — roughly 3% fewer than in 2024, or 43 deaths per million. These are preliminary and will be revised as countries finalise their data.

The EU's target is a 50% reduction in road deaths by 2030 compared with 2019, on the way to zero road deaths by 2050. With deaths down 12% since 2019, progress has been real but slow.

The safest roads: Sweden, Malta, Denmark and Luxembourg

• Sweden has the safest roads in the EU: 20 deaths per million inhabitants in 2024.
• Malta is next at 21 per million.
• Denmark recorded 24 per million.
• Luxembourg recorded 27 per million.

All four sit well below the EU average of 45 per million. Sweden's long-running Vision Zero approach — designing roads and speed limits so that human mistakes do not kill — is widely credited for its position at the top of the ranking, and its model has been copied across Europe.

The most dangerous roads: Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and Croatia

• Romania has the most dangerous roads in the EU: 78 deaths per million in 2024 — nearly four times Sweden's rate.
• Bulgaria recorded 74 per million.
• Greece recorded 64 per million.
• Croatia recorded 62 per million, with Latvia (60 per million) close behind.

Raw counts alone can mislead, because larger countries naturally record more deaths. Rates per million people are the fair comparison — and on that measure, the gap between the safest and most dangerous EU countries is almost fourfold.

How the big EU countries compare

• Germany: 33 deaths per million — 2,770 deaths in 2024.
• Spain: 37 per million — 1,785 deaths.
• France: 48 per million — 3,193 deaths.
• Italy: 51 per million — 3,030 deaths.
• Poland: 52 per million — 1,896 deaths, but also one of the fastest improvers since 2019.

France and Italy sit above the EU average of 45 per million; Germany and Spain sit below it.

The fastest-improving countries since 2019

Between 2019 and 2024, several countries cut their road deaths sharply:

• Poland: down 35%.
• Lithuania: down 33%.
• Denmark: down 27%.
• Belgium: down 27%.
• Bulgaria: down 24%.
• Romania: down 21%.

Not every country improved. Road deaths rose 22% in Ireland, edged up 2% in Spain, and fell just 1% in France over the same period.

Who dies, and where

• 53% of 2024 road deaths happened on rural roads, 38% in urban areas and 8% on motorways.
• 77% of those killed were men.
• In urban areas, vulnerable road users — pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists — account for 70% of deaths.

How these numbers were counted

All figures in this article come from the European Commission's final road safety statistics for 2024, with country-level data from the CARE database and population figures from Eurostat. The 2025 figures are preliminary, published in March 2026, and will be revised. EU road death totals count deaths within 30 days of a crash — the standard international definition. Rates per million inhabitants allow fair comparison between large and small countries.