European air quality, in key statistics

Key findings

1. EEA Air Quality Status Report 2025 Table 3 lists a 2023 PM2.5 Average Exposure Indicator (AEI) for 27 EU members (urban-background mean, 2021–2023).
2. Population-weighted AEI across those 27 members is 11.0 µg/m³ (2.21× the WHO 2021 annual PM2.5 guideline of 5 µg/m³).
3. Poland has the highest listed AEI this vintage (16.0 µg/m³).
4. Ireland has the lowest listed AEI this vintage (1.0 µg/m³). Table 3 reports a 90.2% reduction from the 2009–2011 base AEI of 10.2 µg/m³. AEI is a 3-year urban-background exposure indicator, not a single-station annual mean.
5. 25 of 27 EU members have a listed AEI above the WHO 2021 annual PM2.5 guideline (5 µg/m³). Estonia (4.6 µg/m³) is the other member at or below that line.
6. EEA Burden of Disease (2022 data year) attributes 238,378 premature deaths in the EU-27 to PM2.5 under the WHO-2021-AQG scenario (age ≥30, modelled, not counted deaths).
7. This rebuild tracks 39 EEA monitoring stations alongside the country AEI table.
8. The United Kingdom is in this catalog (9.8 µg/m³) but is absent from Table 3 and from the EEA Burden of Disease death totals used above.

How to read these numbers

AEI is the three-year average of PM2.5 at urban-background stations, the indicator EEA uses for the exposure-concentration obligation. It is not this portal's station-page modelled annual mean, and it is not a real-time index. Ireland's 1.0 µg/m³ is the figure Table 3 prints (with a 90.2% reduction from 10.2); treat it as that published AEI, not as "Ireland's air is 1 µg/m³ everywhere."

High end: Poland . Low end: Ireland . Full source handling lives on the methodology page.

Source: European Environment Agency Air Quality Status Report 2025 Table 3 (AEI 2023) + Burden of Disease 2024 (2022 data) · 2022/2023 AEI = 2021–2023 urban-background PM2.5. Death totals are modelled attributable estimates, EU-27 only.