Cagliari: The total fertility rate in the European Union fell to 1.34 live births per woman in 2024, the lowest level since the series began in 2001, according to a Eurostat news article published on 27 October 2026. The figure sits far below the 2.10 replacement level that keeps a population stable without migration.
Over the past 20 years the EU total fertility rate has stayed under replacement every year, moving within a range of 1.34 to 1.57. The 2024 reading therefore marks the bottom of that range, and it confirms a long decline rather than a sudden break.
The new regional comparison draws on the Eurostat regional yearbook 2026 edition and covers the 1,165 regions at NUTS level 3 that have data for 2024. Of those, 439 regions, or 37.7 percent, recorded a rate below the EU average, 714 regions, or 61.3 percent, stood above it, and 12 matched it. Data for Germany and Moldova refer to 2023, and Eurostat warns that figures may have been revised since.
The highest rates, at least 1.75 births per woman, cluster in Bulgaria and France with 14 regions each, followed by Germany with six and Slovenia with three. Hungary, the Netherlands and Romania count two such regions apiece, while Ireland, Greece, Croatia and Slovakia have one each. A high total fertility rate therefore appears in countries with very different incomes and family policies, which makes simple explanations hard to defend.
At the other end, Spain has 16 regions below 1.00 births per woman and Poland has seven. Italy counts five, Greece three, and Germany and Lithuania two each. Eurostat singles out north-west Spain and some Spanish island regions, along with much of Italy and notably Sardegna, as particularly low. A rate under 1.00 means each generation is less than half the size of its parents’ generation unless migration fills the gap.
The consequences reach well beyond demography tables. The total fertility rate feeds into pension systems, school planning, labour supply and local services, which all depend on how many children are born, and a region with fewer children loses classrooms and maternity wards first. That loss can speed up depopulation, which is why regional data matter more to planners than the national average alone.
The Eurostat article does not offer a year-on-year change, a cause or a policy verdict, so readers should treat the data as a map and not as an explanation. Governments and the Commission will likely read the regional figures next to migration and ageing statistics when they plan public services and cohesion spending.
The record-low total fertility rate of 1.34 in 2024 is a planning problem for every level of government. The regional spread shows that no single policy lever has delivered high fertility across the Union, and the next yearbook will show whether the decline continues.
