Luxembourg: Income inequality across the European Union edged down in 2025, with the EU Gini coefficient falling to 29.2 from 29.4 a year earlier, according to figures Eurostat published on 23 October 2026.

The Gini coefficient measures how income is distributed within a country compared with perfect equality. A value of 0 means everyone receives the same income, while a value of 100 means a single person receives all of it. A fall of 0.2 points is small, so the headline on income inequality reads as stability rather than a clear shift in direction.

The more striking story lies in the gap between member states. Slovakia recorded the lowest figure in the Union at 23.0, which makes it the most equal country on this measure. Belgium followed at 23.4, Czechia at 24.0, Slovenia at 24.6 and Poland at 24.9. Central and northern European economies with large welfare states and compressed wage structures therefore dominate the bottom of the table.

At the other end, Bulgaria posted 37.7, the highest income inequality reading in the Union. Latvia came next at 35.6 and Lithuania at 35.5. The Baltic pair and Bulgaria sit well above the EU figure of 29.2, which means that a resident of Sofia, Riga or Vilnius lives in a much more unequal income distribution than a resident of Bratislava or Brussels.

The distance between the extremes is 14.7 points, or roughly half the EU average. Put differently, Bulgaria sits 8.5 points above the EU figure, while Slovakia sits 6.2 points below it. That asymmetry shows how a few high-inequality countries pull the Union average upward even though most member states cluster closer to the lower end.

Analysts use these numbers to judge whether convergence is reducing income inequality as well as lifting national accounts. They also feed political debates over cohesion funding, minimum wage rules and tax design, because income inequality reflects both market earnings and the effect of taxes and transfers. A country can grow quickly and still show a high Gini if gains concentrate at the top.

Readers should treat a single year with care. One annual reading cannot separate a lasting trend from sampling noise, and the coefficient says nothing about wealth, regional differences inside a country or the cost of living. Even so, the 2025 data confirm a stable pattern: income inequality in the EU stays moderate on average and highly uneven between capitals. The data come from Eurostat’s income and living conditions dataset (ilc_di12), and the next release will show whether the slight 2025 improvement holds.