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Air pollution is Europe’ s greatest environmental health risk. It reduces quality of life, causes diseases and leads to preventable deaths. Air pollution has steadily decreased across Europe over the last two decades. In particular, this is due to the implementation of European, national and local legislation to reduce emissions of air pollutants and improve air quality. As part of these policies, the European Union (EU) has set air quality standards to reduce the risks posed by air pollution.

This report analyses the latest reported concentrations of air pollutants in Europe against current and future (2030) EU standards and the stricter World Health Organization (WHO) guideline levels.

Key messages

Air quality continues to improve, but in up to 20% of monitoring stations in Europe air pollution is still above the current EU air quality standards, especially for particulate matter with a diameter of 10 microns (µm) or less (PM10), ground-level ozone (O3) and benzo(a)pyrene (BaP).

While some regions are already meeting the 2030 EU standards, further reductions are still needed across Europe to protect health.

For most pollutants, concentrations remain well above the levels established by the WHO air quality guideline levels, with more than 9 out of 10 Europeans exposed to air pollution concentrations above those levels.

Reducing air pollution reduces impacts on health and associated economic costs such as healthcare and absenteeism caused by pollution-related illnesses.

Progress on air quality, but still a risk to health and the economy

Air quality remains Europe’s greatest environmental health risk, recognising that it has improved significantly over the past two decades for most regulated pollutants, as acknowledged in the European Environment Agency (EEA) Europe’s Environment 2025 report (EEA, 2025b).

This decrease is due to the implementation of EU, national and local legislation to reduce emissions of air pollutants and improve air quality. For some pollutants, such as cadmium, all European countries are meeting the standards set by EU legislation on air quality. Positive improvements can also be seen for other air pollutants, such as sulphur dioxide (SO2), carbon monoxide (CO), lead, arsenic and nickel, with only a few monitoring stations in Europe showing levels above the EU standards for these pollutants.

Nevertheless, a significant number of monitoring stations across Europe have concentrations of other pollutants above the current EU standards. In most cases, these standards should have been met in 2005. Notable examples are PM10, O3 and BaP. In 2024 more than 12% of the reporting stations registered concentrations for each of these pollutants above the current EU standards.

The situation is more serious if the reported concentrations are assessed against the WHO air quality guideline (AQG) levels. In general, these are stricter than the EU’s legally binding air quality standards. The number of monitoring stations in 2024 where concentrations were below the WHO AQG levels was relatively low, particularly for particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5µm or less (PM2.5) (166 out of 2,223 stations for the annual AQG level) and O3 (53 out of 2,053 stations for the peak-season AQG level).

The higher the levels of these pollutants, the greater the risk of various health impacts associated with them, such as respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. In fact, over 90% of the urban population in the EU is exposed to concentrations above those guideline levels (EEA, 2026b).

Figure 1 gives a summary visualisation of key pollutants that are harmful to human health.

Figure 1. Percentage of monitoring stations in 2024 achieving air quality EU standards/guideline levels

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Benchmarking the current situation against the EU’s new and revised air quality standards, which are applicable from 2030, shows that the reported concentrations for some pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and SO2 are already below certain revised standards at most monitoring stations.

However, for most pollutants the distance to the 2030 target is significant and will likely require additional measures. This is especially the case for particulate matter (PM); in 2024 more than 30% of the reported monitoring stations recorded PM concentrations above the revised standards.

This benchmarking analysis also indicates that the distance to target is bigger for long-term standards than for short-term ones, as evidenced by the fact that more monitoring stations registered concentrations below the revised daily limit values (DLVs) than below the revised annual limit values (ALVs).

As illustrated in the maps of pollutants in this report, air quality levels also vary geographically across Europe. To some extent, this reflects the different regional emission sources.

Achieving the revised EU standards required by 2030 will help reduce the health impacts of air pollution and bring air quality levels closer to the WHO AQG levels over the coming years. To achieve the targets, from 2026 onwards Member States will be required to implement air quality roadmaps for pollutants where the concentration is above the level specified in the revised standards.

Air pollution is a significant public health issue as evidenced by the high burden of disease that can be attributed to it (EEA, 2025c). Furthermore, it also incurs economic costs. As stated in Europe’s Environment 2025 (EEA, 2025b), a 2024 study based on EEA data estimated that air pollution costs EU Member States EUR 600 billion each year, equal to 4% of gross domestic product. Therefore, reducing air pollution in the EU is an opportunity not only to improve public health, but also to enhance competitiveness by reducing the associated costs. These include the costs arising from lost working hours due to absenteeism linked to pollution-related illnesses.

Detailed information is provided in the specific sections of this report. Information on past pollution level trends in all countries is available via the EEA’s online air quality statistics data viewer.

Background context

This report assesses concentrations of air pollutants in ambient air across Europe in 2024 and 2025 against the applicable EU air quality standards and the WHO global AQG levels (WHO, 2021). The EU standards and WHO AQG levels for each pollutant are specified in the respective sections.

The analysis includes 39 countries:

  • the 27 Member States of the EU (EU-27);
  • the other five EEA member countries (Iceland, Lichtenstein, Norway, Switzerland and Türkiye);
  • the six EEA cooperating countries in 2025 (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo under the UNSCR 1244/99, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia);
  • the voluntary reporting country of Andorra.

The EU standards currently in force were initially set out in the 2004 and 2008 Ambient Air Quality Directives (EU, 2004) (EU, 2008)  and are now included in an annex to Directive (EU) 2024/2881. The EU Ambient Air Quality Directive 2024/2881 (EU, 2024) entered into force on 10 December 2024. It sets out new and revised air quality standards to be attained by 1 January 2030. The 2030 standards are more closely aligned with the WHO AQG levels than the current standards. The WHO AQG levels are generally lower than the EU standards; they have been set with the objective of preventing significant impacts from air pollution on human health (WHO, 2021).

Directive (EU) 2024/2881 states that if air pollution levels exceed the 2030 air quality standards between 2026 and 2029, Member States will be required to assess whether they are on track to comply with the legislation. If not, they must develop air quality roadmaps and implement measures to ensure compliance by 2030.

Last year’s report presented for the first time a benchmarking of the 2023 air quality data against a selection of the new and revised standards. This benchmarking is presented again for 2024 air quality data. It represents a preliminary analysis of the distance-to-target in 2024 and not a compliance assessment. It provides an indication of how many monitoring stations or zones may require further measures to achieve compliance with the 2030 air quality standards. This baseline assessment can also help to identify potential hotspots where air quality roadmaps may be needed from 2026.

It is important to note several limitations in the assessment presented in this report; these may affect how useful it is to check legal air quality status against current and future air quality standards:

  • This is not an assessment of compliance but an overview of current air quality status. This is even clearer for the revised air quality standards, which do not apply until 2030.
  • The benchmarking is essentially an analysis of the distance-to-target from the 2024 status. It does not take into consideration projected 2030 pollutant emissions, which will reflect revised emissions legislation as well as existing air quality plans and future air quality roadmaps.
  • The assessment is limited to current monitoring stations. Their number is expected to increase by 2030 to meet new regulatory requirements. Air quality monitoring networks and zones may also be adjusted to comply with the 2024 directive.
  • This assessment does not account for possible deductions in the PM concentrations due to natural sources or, in the case of PM10, due to winter sanding and salting.

This report is the 2026 update of the EEA’s status of air quality series. It is underpinned by two reports from the EEA’s European Topic Centre on Human Health and Environment (ETC HE) (ETC-HE, 2026a) (ETC-HE, 2026b).

1Identifiers

Web report no. 01/2026
Title: Air quality status in Europe 2026
HTML: TH-01-26-023-EN-Q - ISBN: 978-92-9480-775-5 - ISSN: 1977-8449 - doi: 10.2800/1334940