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Rail freight transport dropped by 1.8% in 2025

✇EU Reporter
By: EU Reporter Correspondent

In 2025, the EU rail freight transport performance fell by 1.8%, declining from 375.1 billion tonne-kilometres (tkm) in 2024 to 368.2 tkm, and marking the fourth consecutive year of decline. 

Germany remained by far the largest contributor to rail freight transport performance in the EU, with one third of the EU total (33.5%; 123.5 billion tkm). Poland was the second-largest contributor (14.7% of the EU total; 54.3 billion tkm), followed by France (9.3%; 34.4 billion tkm).

This information comes from data on railway freight transport published by Eurostat on 14 September. The article presents a handful of findings from the more detailed Statistics Explained article on railway freight transport. 

Compared with 2024, rail freight transport performance measured in tonne-kilometres decreased in 16 EU countries, while 8 countries recorded an increase. The largest decreases were recorded in Ireland (-35.2%), Latvia (-18.8%) and Estonia (-17.3%). By contrast, the highest increases were recorded in Greece (+9.3%), Portugal (+8.4%) and France (+6.6%). 

Click to enlarge

Change in the rail freight transport between 2024 and 2025 (% change, based on tonne-kilometres). Chart. See link to the full dataset below.

 Source dataset: rail_go_typepas

Freight per capita: from 0.03 tonnes in Ireland to 10.7 in Luxembourg

Relative to the country’s population, the volume of rail freight transported per capita was highest in Luxembourg (10.7 tonnes), Austria (10.5) and Lithuania (8.5). The lowest rates were observed for Ireland (0.03 tonnes per capita), Greece (0.06) and Spain (0.5).

Click to enlarge

Rail freight per capita, 2025 (in tonnes). Chart. See link to the full dataset below.

 Source datasets: rail_go_typepas and demo_gind

For more information

Methodological notes

  • The data presented in this article include only main railway undertakings. In order to meet the main undertaking threshold, the railway undertaking must achieve a total volume of goods of at least 200 million tonne-kilometres or at least 500 000 tonnes of total weight.
  • There are no railways in Cyprus and Malta. 

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