Cyprus poverty and social exclusion risk below EU average in 2025

Nicosia, Cyprus. Some 17.1 per cent of Cyprus’s population faced poverty or social exclusion in 2025, Eurostat reported, compared with an EU-wide rate of 20.9 per cent.

National figure masks local differences

Eurostat treats Cyprus as one statistical region owing to its size, whereas other EU countries are split into several regions for comparison. The figures put Cyprus below the EU average but provide no breakdown showing differences among the island’s districts or communities.

Across the EU, Eurostat counted 92.7 million residents facing poverty or social exclusion, representing slightly more than one person in five.

Wide regional disparities

The regional breakdown showed substantial variation, with the largest proportions found mainly in the EU’s southern, eastern and outermost areas.

Of 243 regions with available figures, 24 recorded rates of at least 31.5 per cent. These were spread across Spain, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, France and Romania, as well as two largely urban areas of western Europe: Brussels, Belgium’s capital region, and Bremen in Germany’s north-west.

Five regions exceeded twice the EU rate

Eurostat’s figures showed that five regions had rates exceeding double the EU average. French Guiana, an outermost region of France, recorded the highest proportion at 54.8 per cent.

Two southern Italian regions followed: Calabria at 45.3 per cent and neighbouring Sicily at 44 per cent. Completing the five highest rates were Melilla, Spain’s autonomous city, at 43.7 per cent, and Réunion, another French outermost region, at 42.3 per cent.