European household savings dip as consumption outpaces income growth

Euro area households chose to increase their spending at a faster pace than their income grew during the third quarter of 2025, leading to a dip in the region’s overall saving rate according to the latest data released by Eurostat.

The household saving rate in the euro area decreased to 15.1 per cent in the period between July and September, down from the 15.4 per cent recorded in the second quarter of 2025.

This decline is explained by consumption increasing at a faster rate than gross disposable income, with the former rising by 0.9 per cent while the latter grew by only 0.6 per cent, the statistical office of the European Union stated.

At the same time, the household investment rate in the euro area remained stable at 9.0 per cent in the third quarter of 2025.

This stability occurred because gross fixed capital formation increased at substantially the same rate as gross disposable income, with growth figures of 0.7 per cent and 0.6 per cent respectively.

In the third quarter of 2025, the profit share of businesses in the euro area slightly decreased from 39.2 per cent to 39.1 per cent.

This minor contraction is explained by the increase of business compensation of employees, including wages and employers’ social contributions, plus taxes less subsidies on production, growing at a marginally higher rate than gross value added.

Both of these metrics saw growth of 1.2 per cent after rounding was applied to the final figures.

The business investment rate in the euro area saw a slight increase from 21.6 per cent to 21.7 per cent during the third quarter of 2025.

This rise was driven by business gross fixed capital formation increasing by 1.6 per cent, which represented a faster pace than the 1.2 per cent growth seen in gross value added.

The peaks in the second quarter of 2017, the second quarter of 2019, the fourth quarter of 2019 and the first quarter of 2020 are related to large imports of intellectual property products reflecting globalisation effects, Eurostat added.

These data come from a first release of seasonally adjusted quarterly European sector accounts, the statistical office stated.