EIB Investment Survey 2025 - European Union overview

The EIB Investment Survey is conducted annually and includes data from approximately 13 000 firms in all EU Member States plus a sample from the United States. The survey provides information on firm characteristics and performance, past investment activities and future plans, sources of finance and the financing issues businesses face.

Key takeaways

Investment growth is waning

Businesses are finding it difficult to plan. They are trying to understand the ultimate effect of US tariffs and potentially profound geopolitical changes. Those pressures could have depressed investment, but the EIB Investment Survey for 2025 finds that investment is showing remarkable resilience so far – although companies are more cautious about the economic outlook and the political and regulatory environment.

The European Investment Bank Investment Survey finds that 86% of EU firms still plan to invest, compared with 87% in the 2024 survey, although their appetite has somewhat weakened. A marginally higher share of EU firms still expects to increase rather than decrease investment in 2025, and investment growth is waning. The pattern in the United States is broadly similar.