Early school leavers down to 9.1% in 2025

In 2025, the share of early school leavers (young people aged 18-24 leaving early from education and training) in the EU was 9.1%, almost meeting the EU-level target of 9.0% for 2030.

This share has steadily decreased over the last 10 years (from 11.0% in 2015), bringing the EU closer to the target of reducing the rates of early school leavers to below 9.0% by 2030.

More young men than women leave education and training early, but for both sexes, there has been a downward trend. The share of young men decreased from 12.5% in 2015 to 10.6% in 2025. At the same time, the share of young women fell from 9.4% in 2015 to 7.5% last year.

Source dataset: edat_lfse_14

Compared with 2015, 19 EU countries reported a smaller share of early leavers in 2025, with Malta leading with the highest decrease (-7.7 percentage points (pp)), followed by Portugal (-7.4 pp) and Spain (-7.2 pp). Of the 7 countries where the share of early leavers was higher in 2025 than in 2015, Cyprus recorded the biggest increase (+4.6 pp), followed by Germany (+3.0 pp) and Austria (+2.7 pp).

17 EU countries have met the EU target level

Data show that 17 EU countries have already met the 9.0% EU-level target for 2030. The lowest shares of early leavers from education and training were recorded in Croatia (2.1%), Greece (3.0%), and Ireland (3.6%).

At the other end of the range, the EU countries that reported the highest shares of early leavers in 2025 were Romania (15.5%), Germany (13.1%), and Spain (12.8%).

Source dataset: edat_lfse_14