EU rail travel reached 457 billion passenger-kilometres in 2025
Eurostat’s October 2026 release recorded a 2.6 percent increase from the previous year.
News report
Rail passenger transport in the European Union reached 457 billion passenger-kilometres in 2025, Eurostat reported on October 30, 2026. The total was 2.6 percent above 2024 and the highest reported by the main railway undertakings since the series began in 2004.
The measure combines the number of passengers with the distances they travel. One passenger travelling one kilometre contributes one passenger-kilometre; a longer trip adds more than a shorter one. It therefore records transport activity differently from a simple count of boardings.
The release also provided passenger counts by country. Germany reported approximately 2.95 billion passengers carried, followed by France at 1.31 billion and Italy at 844 million. Those country totals reflect a different unit from the headline distance measure.
Relative to population, Luxembourg had the highest reported passenger-to-inhabitant ratio, followed by Hungary and Denmark. That ratio helps compare the scale of rail use across differently sized countries, while the distance measure describes how much travel the network performs.
Together, the figures give complementary views of railway activity: journeys, distance and use relative to population. The annual increase records more rail transport across the reporting system in 2025. Distance-based measurement places short and long journeys within one common total, while the country tables show how national networks contribute to that wider activity. Both perspectives help describe the scale of passenger transport within the European economy.
