Denmark
67.2%any duration
- 0 hours
- 32.8%
- 1–24 hours
- 5.2%
- 25 hours or more
- 62.0%
Europe · 2025 · children and care
How many children use organised care — and for how many hours?
In Denmark and the Netherlands, a similar share of children under three use formal childcare or education. For at least 25 hours a week, the gap reaches 50.5 percentage points.
Here, this means planned early education programmes provided by public organisations or recognised private bodies. Time spent with family is outside this measure.
Eurostat estimates for 2025 · percentages of all children in each age group
Compare countries and ages
Ask the same question of any pair
Each bar shows the share of children in that age group, split by weekly hours of formal childcare or education.
Estimates for children under three, as a share of all children under three in each country.
Netherlands
66.5%any duration
- 0 hours
- 33.5%
- 1–24 hours
- 55.0%
- 25 hours or more
- 11.5%
0 hours
1–24 hours
25 hours or more
Gap in any-duration participation: 0.7 percentage pointsGap at 25 hours or more: 50.5 percentage pointsHigher 25+ hours share: Denmark
Romania and the EU average11.1%of children under three used at least one hour of formal care a week in 2025.
How does Romania compare?
In 2025, 11.1% of children under three in Romania used a formal childcare or education programme for at least one hour a week. The EU-27 average was 40.6%. This indicator describes reported use, not the number of places available.
The share of children spending at least 25 hours a week in formal care is 7.4% in Romania and 29.4% for the EU-27 average.
All 27 EU countries
Explore the country distribution
Values show the percentage of children in each age group. Choose a column to sort; selecting another age updates the table.
| Denmark | 67.2% | 32.8% | 5.2% | 62.0% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Slovenia | 60.3% | 39.7% | 3.0% | 57.3% |
| Portugal | 57.9% | 42.1% | 2.3% | 55.5% |
| France | 59.7% | 40.3% | 11.5% | 48.2% |
| Luxembourg | 56.4% b | 43.6% b | 8.7% b | 47.7% b |
| Sweden | 59.7% | 40.3% | 13.2% | 46.5% |
| Lithuania | 43.8% p | 56.2% p | 0.0% p | 43.8% p |
| Malta | 55.9% | 44.1% | 13.1% | 42.8% |
| Latvia | 45.1% | 54.9% | 3.0% | 42.1% |
| Cyprus | 42.4% | 57.6% | 1.1% | 41.3% |
| Finland | 43.3% | 56.7% | 3.9% | 39.3% |
| Spain | 56.8% | 43.2% | 18.0% | 38.8% |
| Belgium | 48.1% | 51.9% | 10.7% | 37.4% |
| Croatia | 32.5% | 67.5% | 1.9% | 30.6% |
| Estonia | 34.8% | 65.2% | 8.8% | 26.0% |
| Italy | 35.5% | 64.5% | 9.7% | 25.7% |
| Hungary | 21.1% | 78.9% | 1.1% | 20.0% |
| Bulgaria | 22.2% | 77.8% | 3.2% | 19.0% |
| Germany | 26.2% | 73.8% | 7.8% | 18.4% |
| Poland | 21.0% | 79.0% | 3.2% | 17.8% |
| Ireland | 27.0% | 73.0% | 9.3% | 17.7% |
| Greece | 23.7% | 76.3% | 7.0% | 16.6% |
| Austria | 30.9% | 69.1% | 15.4% | 15.5% |
| Netherlands | 66.5% | 33.5% | 55.0% | 11.5% |
| Romania | 11.1% | 88.9% | 3.7% | 7.4% |
| Czechia | 7.9% | 92.1% | 5.3% | 2.6% |
| Slovakia | 1.8% | 98.2% | 0.7% | 1.1% |
Eurostat status codes appear beside flagged values. b = break in series; p = provisional; u = low reliability. No code does not mean there is no sampling error.
What the percentages measure
Hours in organised programmes, from Eurostat’s household survey
Eurostat defines formal childcare as organised, intentional and planned education programmes provided by public organisations or recognised private bodies. The values show the share of children reported in each weekly duration band; informal care by family members is outside these percentages.
“Under 3” also includes children younger than one; “ages 1–2” is a separate group. The other age groups depend on each country’s minimum compulsory school age. Every value is an estimated percentage of the group, not a count of children observed. These data describe use; they do not show the number of places, costs, what parents want, or why they choose a particular duration.
The opening comparison was selected this way: among country pairs within 3 percentage points of each other in any participation, Denmark and the Netherlands have the largest difference at the 25-hour threshold. Three points is an exploratory selection rule, not a statistical threshold. These are point estimates; this page does not test whether differences are statistically significant.
Sources, definitions and data reuse
Primary source: Eurostat, ilc_caindform25b, 2025, total population, percentage unit; retrieved 4 November 2026. Cross-check: ilc_caindform25. Formulas and notes are in the source register; download the CSV data.
Source: Eurostat. Data modified and explanatory copy translated by Marius Comper. Neither the European Commission nor any person acting on its behalf is responsible for any use that may be made of this information.