Greece remains among the top performers in Europe for bathing water quality, according to the 2025 Bathing Water Report published by the European Environment Agency.

The country ranks second among European states, with 97.1% of its bathing sites classified as having “excellent quality”, confirming the consistently high cleanliness of Greek seas and coastal waters.

Cyprus holds first place, with 100% of bathing waters rated in the highest quality category. It is followed by Bulgaria at 96.9% and Austria at 96.5%.

Strong performance across Europe

The report highlights a significant overall improvement in European water quality, with almost all bathing sites (96%) meeting EU standards. Only a very small share, around 1.5%, is classified as poor quality.

Coastal waters continue to outperform inland waters. Specifically, 88% of coastal bathing waters in the EU are rated as excellent, compared to 78% of lakes, rivers and other inland water bodies.

Experts attribute this gap to the greater vulnerability of inland waters to short-term pollution events caused by heavy rainfall, flooding, or drought conditions.

Countries with the weakest performance

At the other end of the ranking, Albania recorded the lowest performance in Europe, with only 16.8% of its bathing waters classified as excellent.

Low shares of excellent-quality waters were also recorded in Estonia (56.9%), Poland (58.7%), Hungary (64%) and Belgium (67.9%). In addition, in countries such as Estonia, the Netherlands and France, more than 3% of bathing sites were classified as poor quality.

Regarding inland waters, Spain showed the weakest performance, with more than 11% of its rivers and lakes classified as poor quality.

The challenge of rivers

Europe’s rivers continue to be a key concern. According to the report, only 47% of around 1,200 river bathing sites across Europe achieved an “excellent quality” rating.

The degradation of many river ecosystems is linked to long-term urbanisation, industrial activity, agricultural runoff, and sewage overflow events following heavy rainfall.

Despite these challenges, the European Environment Agency notes that the quality of many urban rivers has improved significantly over recent decades due to EU water protection policies, making swimming safe again in several European cities.