Romania leads EU construction growth with 39% rise in August

Bucharest, Romania - Romania posted the fastest annual rise in construction output of any European Union member state in August 2026, with activity up 39% on a year earlier, according to figures released by Eurostat on 20 October.

That rate was far ahead of the 2.6% average for the EU as a whole and the 1.4% recorded across the euro area.

Hungary came second with annual growth of 22%, and Finland third at 12.7%. France posted the steepest fall, with output down 7.8%, ahead of Slovakia at -4.9% and Spain at -4.3%.

Month on month, Romania was again near the top of the table. Seasonally adjusted output rose 7.2% between July and August, the bloc’s third-biggest gain behind Hungary at 14% and Germany at 9.3%.

The wider EU registered a 2% monthly increase in construction activity, and the euro area 1.8%.

Across the EU, the annual picture for August was more uneven. Eurostat recorded year-on-year growth of 2.8% in civil engineering and 2.9% in specialised construction activities, but output in the construction of buildings fell 4.1%.

That leaves Romania well ahead of a European market where overall growth is far more modest and building activity is still shrinking in aggregate.

At home, Romania’s National Institute of Statistics (INS) put the year-on-year rise in the volume of construction works at 40.5% for August, on an unadjusted basis.

Housing drove the domestic figures. Residential output climbed 54.9% against August 2025, while civil engineering, a category covering transport infrastructure and other large engineering schemes, grew 39.5%. Non-residential buildings were up 33.3%.

Split by type of work, new builds rose 45.2%, maintenance and current repairs 39.5% and capital repairs 22.7%.

Once working days and seasonal effects are stripped out, total activity was 35.5% higher than in August 2025.

August’s jump comes on top of steady expansion in the Romanian construction sector through 2026.

Unadjusted INS data show the volume of works between January and August running 15.4% above the same eight months of 2025. New construction grew 18.7%, with maintenance and current repairs up 10.9% and capital repairs up 6.8%.

Over the same period, residential buildings again showed the strongest gain, at 22.9%. Civil engineering works followed with 14.9% and non-residential buildings with 11.3%.

On a seasonally and calendar-adjusted basis, total output for the first eight months of 2026 was up 11.7%.