Working from home in Europe: Why your chances vary so much depending on where you live
A worker's chances of working from home can depend heavily on where they live. Across the EU, people in some countries are 16 times more likely to work remotely than those in others.
Where you live can have a major impact on whether you work from home.
Across Europe, workers in Finland are around 16 times more likely to work remotely than those in Romania, highlighting a stark divide in how countries have embraced home working.
According to Eurostat, 20.5% of workers in Finland usually worked from home in 2025, compared with just 1.3% in Romania. Eurostat defines "usually working from home" as doing productive work at home for at least half of the days worked over a four-week reference period.
“Remote work has become a permanent feature of labour markets, but its scale depends heavily on what kinds of jobs a country has and how firms manage workers,” Cevat Giray Aksoy, deputy director of research at the EBRD, told Euronews Business.
So, which European countries have the highest rates of working from home? And what explains the wide gap between countries?
Finland and Ireland stand apart
Finland and Ireland are in a league of their own when it comes to remote work. In 2025, around one in five workers usually worked from home in both countries (20.5% and 19.2% respectively), more than double the EU average of 8.8%.
No other European country records a remote-working rate above 14%. The next group of countries includes Belgium, which ranks third at 13.2%, followed by Germany (13%) and Malta (12.5%).
Several countries in northern and western Europe — including Sweden, Estonia, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France and Austria — also have rates above 10%, meaning more than one in 10 workers usually work from home.
At the other end of the scale, Romania (1.3%), Bulgaria (1.4%), North Macedonia (1.9%), Greece (2.3%) and Italy (2.7%) all record rates below 3%. Remote working remains below 5% across several other countries in southern and eastern Europe, including Serbia, Turkey, Hungary, Cyprus, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Working from home in major economies
Working from home shares differ significantly within the EU's four largest economies. While Germany ranks fourth overall at 13%, Italy has a comparatively low share at 2.7%. France (11%) is above the EU average, while Spain (7.9%) is just below it.
Eurostat data points to a clear regional divide, with working from home generally more common in northern and north-western Europe and much less common in eastern and south-eastern Europe.
The UK is not included in Eurostat data, but separate research suggests it has the highest rate of remote working across Europe.
Three factors driving country differences
Cevat Giray Aksoy said that the large gaps across countries are mainly driven by three factors.
The first is economic structure: Countries with more employment in information and communications technology (ICT), finance, professional services, public administration, research, and other desk-based occupations naturally have higher work-from-home rates.
Countries with larger shares of employment in manufacturing, agriculture, construction, tourism, logistics, retail, and in-person services have lower rates because many jobs simply cannot be done remotely.
“This helps explain why more service- and knowledge-intensive economies tend to be at the top, while countries with larger in-person sectors tend to be at the bottom,” he told Euronews Business.
Workplace culture also matters
However, job structure is not the whole story. Aksoy pointed to the role of workplace culture. “Countries where work is organised around more autonomy and trust tend to have higher remote-work adoption, while countries with stronger norms of in-person supervision and face-to-face coordination tend to have lower adoption,” he said.
It saves time and offers flexibility
Worker demand also matters. Aksoy explained that remote work is valuable to employees because it saves commuting time and gives more flexibility, especially for parents and people with long commutes.
Their research estimated that working from home saves about 72 minutes per day on average across countries, and workers allocate a significant share of this saved time to work and caregiving.
“The cross-country gaps should not be seen as a simple ranking of ‘modern’ versus ‘traditional’ labour markets, but as the result of differences in occupational structure, digital readiness, management culture, commuting costs, and the pandemic experience,” Aksoy said.
Role of digital infrastructure and legislation
Jorge Cabrita, senior research manager at Eurofound, also emphasised the role of digital infrastructure. Faster, more accessible internet is associated with higher remote work rates, while poor connectivity acts as a deterrent.
“Legislation may also play a role: several EU Member States (including France, Ireland and the Netherlands) give workers the right to request remote work, which itself can act as a catalyst,” he told Euronews Business.
