What interior work costs in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Poland: Eurostat labour costs, price levels and construction prices
The cost of an interior in the European Union is set by the hourly cost of the trades, the price level of furniture and fittings, the trend in construction prices and the type of dwelling being fitted out. Eurostat publishes all four, and the figures for Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Poland show a spread of three to one in labour and a spread of one fifth in furniture prices.
Hourly labour costs in 2025: 19.1 EUR in Poland to 47.9 EUR in the Netherlands
Eurostat's labour cost levels dataset, lc_lci_lev, puts the average hourly labour cost for the whole economy in 2025 at 34.9 EUR in the EU and 38.2 EUR in the euro area, with 47.9 EUR in the Netherlands, 45.0 EUR in Germany, 44.3 EUR in France, 32.0 EUR in Italy, 26.4 EUR in Spain and 19.1 EUR in Poland, according to the lc_lci_lev data browser page. The EU range runs from 12.0 EUR in Bulgaria to 56.8 EUR in Luxembourg, with Denmark at 51.7 EUR.
Hourly labour cost is the full cost to the employer: gross wages and salaries plus non-wage costs such as employers' social contributions. Non-wage costs made up 24.8 percent of the EU total in 2025 and 32.3 percent in France, the highest share in the EU, according to the Eurostat Statistics Explained article on hourly labour costs, which was extracted on 31 March 2026.
| Country | Hourly labour cost, whole economy, 2025 (EUR) | Change on 2024 (percent) |
|---|---|---|
| EU-27 | 34.9 | 4.1 |
| Netherlands | 47.9 | 6.0 |
| Germany | 45.0 | 3.6 |
| France | 44.3 | 2.0 |
| Italy | 32.0 | 3.2 |
| Spain | 26.4 | 3.5 |
| Poland | 19.1 | 10.5 |
The growth column matters as much as the level. Poland's hourly cost rose 10.5 percent in euro terms in 2025, five times France's 2.0 percent, so the gap between the cheapest and dearest of the six countries is closing at about one percentage point a year. Eurostat's news release on the 2025 figures records rises of 13.1 percent in Bulgaria, 11.6 percent in Croatia and 10.6 percent in Romania.
Construction labour costs in 2025: the figure that prices a fit-out
The same Eurostat dataset gives the hourly labour cost in the construction sector (NACE section F) for 2025 as 31.5 EUR in the EU, 47.7 EUR in the Netherlands, 39.9 EUR in France, 39.6 EUR in Germany, 29.0 EUR in Italy, 24.0 EUR in Spain and 15.6 EUR in Poland, and construction is the lowest-cost of the main sectors in the euro area, at 34.4 EUR against 40.3 EUR in industry.
| Country | Hourly labour cost, construction, 2025 (EUR) | Change on 2024 (percent) |
|---|---|---|
| EU-27 | 31.5 | 4.9 |
| Netherlands | 47.7 | 6.9 |
| France | 39.9 | 3.1 |
| Germany | 39.6 | 3.9 |
| Italy | 29.0 | 5.9 |
| Spain | 24.0 | 4.7 |
| Poland | 15.6 | 8.9 |
Construction labour costs three times as much per hour in the Netherlands as in Poland, and the ranking differs from the whole-economy ranking: France overtakes Germany in construction, at 39.9 EUR against 39.6 EUR, while Germany leads France in the whole economy. Italy's construction cost rose 5.9 percent in 2025, faster than its whole-economy rate of 3.2 percent.
An example shows the size of the effect. A fit-out that takes 400 hours of site labour costs 6240 EUR of employer labour cost in Poland, 9600 EUR in Spain, 11 600 EUR in Italy, 15 840 EUR in Germany, 15 960 EUR in France and 19 080 EUR in the Netherlands at the 2025 rates, before materials, overheads and margin. The labour cost figure is not the price on a contractor's invoice, which adds overhead, profit and VAT, but it is the component that varies most across the six countries.
Price levels in 2024: furniture is dearest in France and Italy, cheapest in Spain
Eurostat's price level indices for 2024, from the prc_ppp_ind dataset, put furniture and furnishings at 113.0 percent of the EU average in France, 109.4 in Italy, 97.3 in the Netherlands, 95.7 in Germany, 92.7 in Poland and 92.0 in Spain, so the spread across the six countries is 21 points on a scale where the EU is 100, according to the prc_ppp_ind data browser page. Malta had the most expensive furniture in the EU at 125.7 and Bulgaria the cheapest at 67.6.
| Country (2024, EU-27 = 100) | Actual individual consumption | Furniture and furnishings | Household furnishings and equipment | Household appliances | Housing, water, energy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Netherlands | 121.0 | 97.3 | 101.1 | 106.7 | 129.8 |
| Germany | 109.1 | 95.7 | 107.1 | 99.5 | 113.1 |
| France | 107.9 | 113.0 | 107.7 | 105.1 | 122.5 |
| Italy | 98.1 | 109.4 | 96.6 | 95.2 | 93.4 |
| Spain | 90.7 | 92.0 | 93.2 | 97.3 | 96.5 |
| Poland | 70.2 | 92.7 | 87.5 | 91.7 | 49.2 |
Furniture prices do not follow the general price level. The Netherlands is the dearest of the six countries for consumption as a whole, at 121.0, but sits below the EU average for furniture at 97.3; Italy is below average overall at 98.1 but above average for furniture at 109.4. Poland's furniture price level of 92.7 is 22 points above its overall level of 70.2, because furniture is traded across borders and Poland exports most of what it makes.
Household appliances cluster tightly, from 91.7 in Poland to 106.7 in the Netherlands, a spread of 15 points, because appliances are branded goods sold through the same European distribution. Housing, water and energy show the widest spread, from 49.2 in Poland to 129.8 in the Netherlands, because rents and utilities are not traded.
Eurostat's 2025 release, published in June 2026, reports that Denmark had the highest overall price level for household consumption in 2025 at 140 percent of the EU average and Bulgaria the lowest at 63 percent, that Ireland had the most expensive housing at 190 percent and Bulgaria the cheapest at 41 percent, and that Malta remained the most expensive country for furniture and furnishings, per the Eurostat news release of 18 June 2026 on 2025 price levels.
Construction producer prices: 24 percent above 2021 in the EU by 2025
Eurostat's construction producer price index for residential buildings, dataset sts_copi_a with 2021 as 100, stood at 124.2 for the EU in 2025, 135.9 in Poland, 133.9 in Germany, 127.7 in the Netherlands, 118.9 in Spain, 112.4 in France and 110.7 in Italy, according to the sts_copi_a data browser page. The producer price index measures what contractors charge for new residential building work, including labour, materials, overheads and margin.
| Country (residential buildings, 2021 = 100) | Producer price index 2024 | Producer price index 2025 | Change 2025 on 2024 (percent) |
|---|---|---|---|
| EU-27 | 122.6 | 124.2 | 1.3 |
| Poland | 131.3 | 135.9 | 3.5 |
| Germany | 129.8 | 133.9 | 3.2 |
| Netherlands | 125.4 | 127.7 | 1.8 |
| Spain | 116.4 | 118.9 | 2.1 |
| France | 117.0 | 112.4 | -3.9 |
| Italy | 109.7 | 110.7 | 0.9 |
The 2021 to 2025 period contains the price shock of 2022. Eurostat's Statistics Explained overview of construction prices records rises of 5.8 percent in 2021 in both the EU and the euro area, double-digit increases in most countries in 2022, slower growth in 2023 and 2.3 percent in 2024. By 2025 the EU rate had slowed to 1.3 percent, and France recorded a fall of 3.9 percent, the only decline among the six countries.
Eurostat also publishes a construction cost index that tracks input costs rather than prices charged. In 2025 that index stood at 121.5 in Germany, 122.8 in the Netherlands and 118.9 in Spain on the same 2021 base, within two points of each country's producer price index, which shows that contractor margins in those three countries moved little over the period.
House prices and rents: 60.5 percent and 28.8 percent above 2010
Eurostat reports that house prices in the EU rose 60.5 percent and rents 28.8 percent between 2010 and the second quarter of 2025, with house prices more than tripling in Hungary at 277 percent and Estonia at 250 percent, doubling in Poland at 104 percent, and falling only in Italy at 1 percent, according to the Eurostat news release of 3 October 2025. Rents rose in 26 EU countries over the same period and fell only in Greece, by 9 percent.
House prices matter to interior budgets because renovation spending follows equity. Eurostat's first-quarter 2026 release shows the trend continuing at a slower pace: EU house prices up 5.1 percent and rents up 3.0 percent on a year earlier, with France the exception among large economies at a fall of 0.5 percent in house prices.
Dwelling type sets the scope of interior work. Eurostat's EU-SILC data for 2024 (dataset ilc_lvho01) show 47.9 percent of the EU population living in flats and 51.4 percent in houses, with flats dominant in Spain at 65.3 percent, Germany at 59.4 percent and Italy at 58.9 percent, and houses dominant in the Netherlands at 77.1 percent, France at 63.5 percent and Poland at 58.4 percent. The average number of rooms per person in 2024 (ilc_lvho03) ranged from 1.2 in Poland to 2.1 in the Netherlands, with Italy at 1.5, Germany at 1.7, France at 1.8 and Spain at 1.9, and the overcrowding rate (ilc_lvho05a) ranged from 4.6 percent in the Netherlands to 33.7 percent in Poland, with Italy at 23.9 percent.
| Country (EU-SILC 2024) | Population in flats (percent) | Rooms per person | Overcrowding rate (percent) |
|---|---|---|---|
| EU-27 | 47.9 | 1.7 | 16.9 |
| Netherlands | 19.9 | 2.1 | 4.6 |
| France | 36.2 | 1.8 | 10.4 |
| Poland | 41.4 | 1.2 | 33.7 |
| Italy | 58.9 | 1.5 | 23.9 |
| Germany | 59.4 | 1.7 | 11.5 |
| Spain | 65.3 | 1.9 | 9.1 |
The EU furniture industry: 130 000 firms, 900 000 jobs and 110 billion EUR of output in 2023
Eurostat's structural business statistics for 2023, dataset sbs_sc_ovw, record about 130 000 enterprises manufacturing furniture (NACE C31) in the EU, employing about 900 000 people, with a value of output of about 110 billion EUR and value added of about 37 billion EUR, according to the sbs_sc_ovw data browser page. Italy led output at 27.2 billion EUR, followed by Germany at 22.8 billion EUR and Poland at 13.7 billion EUR.
| Country (NACE C31, 2023) | Enterprises | Persons employed | Value of output (million EUR) | Value added per employee (thousand EUR) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EU-27 | 130 000 | 900 000 | 110 000 | 45.68 |
| Italy | 14 938 | 128 593 | 27 231.7 | 70.95 |
| Germany | 10 192 | 141 644 | 22 815.8 | 63.49 |
| Poland | 24 723 | 195 822 | 13 743.7 | 26.81 |
| Spain | 10 481 | 62 668 | 7997.8 | 46.47 |
| France | 13 742 | 49 416 | 7856.5 | 65.73 |
| Netherlands | 11 005 | 27 522 | 4590.2 | 87.19 |
Poland employs the most people in furniture making, 195 822 in 2023, but generates 26.81 thousand EUR of value added per employee against 70.95 thousand EUR in Italy and 87.19 thousand EUR in the Netherlands. The gap reflects the labour cost gap above: Polish factories produce volume for export at 15.6 EUR an hour of construction-grade labour, while Italian and Dutch factories produce higher-value pieces with fewer people.
The trade publication Interior Daily, reporting figures compiled by the analyst Furnilytics from Eurostat data, estimates European furniture production at 123.9 billion EUR in 2025, up from 100.7 billion EUR in 2020 and down from a peak of 130.3 billion EUR in 2022, with Italy at 27.9 billion EUR, Germany at 20.7 billion EUR and Poland at 13.1 billion EUR, the three together holding 49.8 percent of output, according to the Interior Daily report. Adjusted for inflation, the same report puts 2025 output at 98.6 billion EUR, about 8 percent below the pre-pandemic level, after furniture producer prices rose 20.5 percent between January 2021 and March 2023.
Households spend a small and stable share on the sector. Furnishings, household equipment and routine household maintenance took 4.8 percent of EU household expenditure in 2024, equal to 2.5 percent of GDP, while housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels took 23.6 percent, according to Eurostat's household consumption by purpose article. A furniture buyer who wants an environmental mark on the product can check the EU Ecolabel criteria for furniture and paints; a buyer specifying office chairs or kitchen units against the European standards can read the article on EN 1335-1 office chair dimensions and EN 14749 storage requirements.
How to use the Eurostat figures in an interior budget
The Eurostat figures translate into an interior budget in four steps: price the labour hours at the construction labour cost of the country, index the material and furniture lines by the price level index for furniture and furnishings, apply the construction producer price trend to any quote older than a year, and check the dwelling type and rooms per person to size the job. Each step uses a dataset code that can be rerun when Eurostat publishes the next year.
- Labour: multiply the estimated site hours by the construction labour cost from lc_lci_lev (2025: 15.6 EUR in Poland to 47.7 EUR in the Netherlands) and add the contractor's overhead and margin.
- Furniture and fittings: take a reference price in one country and scale it by the ratio of furniture price level indices from prc_ppp_ind (2024: 92.0 in Spain to 113.0 in France).
- Quotes: index a quote from 2024 by the sts_copi_a producer price change for 2025 (3.5 percent in Poland, 3.2 percent in Germany, minus 3.9 percent in France).
- Scope: a flat in Spain (65.3 percent of the population) at 1.9 rooms per person is a different job from a house in the Netherlands (77.1 percent) at 2.1 rooms per person.
Eurostat revises datasets after first release, so a budget should record the extraction date of each query. The energy cost of the lighting in the finished interior depends on the lamp class, as the article on EPREL and the A to G energy label for light sources sets out.
Questions and answers
What does an hour of construction labour cost in the EU?
Eurostat's labour cost levels dataset (lc_lci_lev) gives an average hourly labour cost in construction of 31.5 EUR in the EU in 2025, with 47.7 EUR in the Netherlands, 39.9 EUR in France, 39.6 EUR in Germany, 29.0 EUR in Italy, 24.0 EUR in Spain and 15.6 EUR in Poland. The figures include wages and non-wage costs such as employers' social contributions.
Which EU country has the most expensive furniture?
In Eurostat's 2024 price level indices (prc_ppp_ind), furniture and furnishings were most expensive in Malta at 125.7 percent of the EU average, followed by France at 113.0 and Denmark at 109.8. Among the six countries compared, Italy stood at 109.4, Netherlands at 97.3, Germany at 95.7, Poland at 92.7 and Spain at 92.0.
How much have construction prices risen since 2021?
Eurostat's construction producer price index for residential buildings (sts_copi_a, 2021 = 100) stood at 124.2 for the EU in 2025, meaning prices 24.2 percent above 2021. Poland stood at 135.9, Germany at 133.9, the Netherlands at 127.7, Spain at 118.9, France at 112.4 and Italy at 110.7.
How big is the EU furniture industry?
Eurostat's structural business statistics (sbs_sc_ovw) record about 130 000 furniture manufacturing enterprises (NACE C31) in the EU in 2023, employing about 900 000 people, with a value of output of about 110 billion EUR and value added of about 37 billion EUR. Italy, Germany and Poland are the three largest producers.
How much do EU households spend on furnishings?
Eurostat's household consumption by purpose data show that furnishings, household equipment and routine household maintenance took 4.8 percent of EU household expenditure in 2024, equal to 2.5 percent of GDP, while housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels took 23.6 percent.