EU bathing waters in the 2025 season: 85 % excellent, below 70 % in Poland
On 16 June 2026 the European Environment Agency and the European Commission published the bathing water assessment for the 2025 season. Of the EU’s 22 010 bathing waters, 85 % were of excellent quality, 96 % met at least the minimum requirements and 1.5 % (324) were rated poor; Poland is among the countries where fewer than 70 % of bathing waters were excellent.
- The assessment rests solely on two faecal indicators — Escherichia coli and intestinal enterococci. At least four samples are taken from each bathing water per season: one before the season and at least three during it, with no more than a month between samples; the classification uses results from four seasons (2022–2025).
- Coastal waters fare better than inland ones: across the whole assessment (EU, Albania and Switzerland) 87.4 % of 14 861 coastal bathing waters and 78.3 % of 7 428 bathing waters on rivers and lakes were excellent, while of around 1 200 river bathing sites only 47 % were.
- Poland is among the countries where fewer than 70 % of coastal and fewer than 60 % of inland bathing waters were excellent. In three EU countries 3 % or more of bathing waters were poor: Estonia (4.6 %), the Netherlands (4.1 %) and France (3.3 %).
- The quality of 611 EU bathing waters could not be assessed: 351 were new or recently changed, 173 were inaccessible and for 87 the reason for missing data is unknown. The Bathing Water Directive does not cover chemical pollutants such as nutrients, pharmaceuticals and pesticides — these are assessed under the Water Framework Directive — nor antimicrobial resistance.
Source: European Environment Agency — Europe’s bathing waters remain safe to swim (16.06.2026)