What European country boasts the highest share of road freight transport?

Luxembourg boasts the highest share of road freight transport in the European Union, with 84.4% of its freight transported by road, according to new data from Eurostat.

According to the 2024 data, other countries to report a high share of road freight transport include Czechia (78%), Hungary (68.8%), Poland (67.7%), Austria (67.3%) and Slovakia (66.5%).

At the other end of the scale, the lowest share of road freight transport was recorded in Portugal (1.6%), followed by Greece (3.4%) and Cyprus (3.5%).

Road freight was the main mode of freight transport in 11 countries in 2024, the data showed.

Freight transport

In 2024, freight transport within the European Union was dominated by maritime shipping, which accounted for 67.0% of all tonne-kilometres, Eurostat‘s data showed.

Road transport made up 25.7%, rail 5.4%, inland waterways 1.7%, and air transport just 0.2%.

Compared with ten years earlier, the share of maritime transport declined by 2.5 percentage points, while road transport was the only mode that increased, rising by 3.3 percentage points. Rail and inland waterways saw slight decreases, and air transport remained unchanged.

Maritime transport remained the primary mode in 15 of the 22 EU countries with coastlines, with nine countries having over 70% of their freight carried by sea. The largest declines over the decade occurred in Finland (-12.4 percentage points), Sweden (-11.2 percentage points), and Romania (-7.2 percentage points).

Across the EU, 21 countries saw increases in the share of road transport, with the largest gains in Lithuania (+22.4 percentage points), Latvia (+22.0 percentage points), and Romania (+14.8 percentage points). Read more here.

Road Freight Transport by EU Member State, 2024 (%)