According to preliminary estimates from Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, in February 2026, compared to February 2025, production in construction decreased by 2% in the EU. A month earlier there was a decline of 4.2%. y/y, so although it was bad, it was better than in January. Well, January was frosty and snowy on the continent, some works were suspended and resumed in February. Unfortunately, it was different in Poland.
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In February 2026 compared to February 2025 production in construction decreased by as much as 13.7%. y/y – Eurostat reports. A month earlier it was 11 percent. decline, so despite the improvement of the weather in February, we had a deepening collapse.
In addition, this is the largest decline on the Old Continent in 12 months. Similarly large declines were recorded only in Spain, where the annual decline is also measured by a double-digit number (-10.2%).
We are currently the worst in Europe in terms of the dynamics of the construction industry, not only on an annual basis, but also compared to January. “Among the Member States for which data is available, the largest monthly declines in construction production were recorded in Poland (-3.7%), Belgium and France (-1.4% each) and Germany (-1.2%). The largest increases were recorded in Romania (+8.7%), Slovenia (+5.5%) and Slovakia (+5.4%),” writes Eurostat.
Regression in housing construction
The greatest declines occurred in Poland in the “building construction” segment. Here, the negative dynamics in February amounted to 16.7%. It was still better than -18.4%. y/y in January, but still very negative.
In Spain, the situation was even worse in this segment. There, the construction of buildings dropped by as much as 35.7% in February. rdr.
The decline in Poland is mainly due to the rapidly shrinking housing market as growth slows and even prices fall. When there was an influx of immigrants, mainly from Ukraine, a lot of apartments were needed, now there is an inflow, but on a smaller scale and investments have decreased. In the case of individual construction, the year-on-year decline in February was as much as 25.8%. y/y, and developers reduced the number of new apartment constructions by 11.7%. rdr. Only the segment of the construction of social rented apartments was growing, but this was only 343 apartments in Poland with almost 10,000. with developers.
Specialized construction recorded a decline of 12.2%. rdr, and the construction of civil engineering facilities, i.e., among others roads and bridges – by 11.8 percent
