Poland’s wealth gap to EU average narrows to record low level

Poland’s economy has moved closer than ever to the European Union average, new data from Eurostat show. Its GDP per capita adjusted for differences in cost of living (so-called purchasing power standard, or PPS) reached 81% of the EU-wide figure in 2025.

That is Poland’s highest ever figure and underscores the country’s rapid economic growth over the three decades. In 1995, when Eurostat first started recording such data, Poland’s GDP per capita (PPS) stood at just 44% of the EU average.

Since then, it has overtaken Greece (whose figure is now 68% of the EU average) and caught up with Portugal (81%), but remains behind some other eastern EU member states such as the Czech Republic (92%).

Across the bloc, Luxembourg (239%) and Ireland (237%) recorded the highest GDP per capita in PPS terms compared to the EU average, followed by Denmark (127%). At the other end of the scale were Bulgaria and Greece (both 68%) and Latvia (71%)

Overall, Poland’s figure of 81% if the joint-18th highest among the EU’s 27 member states, equal with Portugal and just behind Lithuania (88%) and Slovenia (91%), while ahead of Estonia (79%) and Romania (78%).

Poland’s 37 percentage-point improvement on this metric since 1995 is the sixth-largest gain among EU countries, behind Ireland (130 pp), Lithuania (54 pp), Romania (48 pp), Estonia (43 pp) and Latvia (41 pp).

Poland has been one of Europe’s fastest-growing economies in recent decades. It was the only EU member state to avoid recession during the 2007–2009 global financial crisis and remained among the stronger performers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2025, Poland recorded GDP growth of 3.6%, the fourth-highest rate in the EU, behind Ireland (12.3%), Malta (4.0%) and Cyprus (3.8%), according to Eurostat.

Ireland’s growth figure, however, is widely seen as distorted by the activities of multinational companies, while Malta and Cyprus both have relatively small economies.

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is deputy editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She has written for Clean Energy Wire and The Times, and she hosts her own podcast, The Warsaw Wire, on Poland’s economy and energy sector. She previously worked for Reuters.