site.btaBulgaria Has Highest Total Fertility Rate in EU for Third Consecutive Year in 2024, Eurostat Reports

Bulgaria recorded the highest total fertility rate in the European Union for a third consecutive year in 2024, although the indicator showing how many live-born children a woman would have during her lifetime at current birth rates declined, compared with 2023, show latest data from Eurostat published on the agency’s website on Friday.

Bulgaria’s total fertility rate fell from 1.81 births per woman in 2023 – the country’s highest level since 1990, to 1.72 births per woman in 2024. This is the lowest fertility rate in Bulgaria since 2017, when it stood at 1.71 births per woman.

Despite the decline, Bulgaria remained first in the EU by fertility rate in 2024, a position it first shared with France in 2022 and retained in 2023.

In 2024, as in 2023, France ranked second in the EU with 1.61 births per woman, followed by Slovenia in third place with 1.52 births per woman.

The EU member states with the lowest fertility rates in 2024 were Malta (1.01 births per woman), Spain (1.10 births per woman), and Lithuania (1.11 births per woman).