In 2024, 82.3% of people in the EU with severe disability had used the internet in the past 12 months. Among those with moderate disability, the share was 89.0% and it was 95.2% for those with no disability. This means that the gap between those with severe disability and those without was 12.9 percentage points (pp).
Regarding some of the activities online, half of the people with severe disability (50.9%) used the internet to seek health-related information. For people with moderate disability, 59.1% sought health-related information, a little more than people without disability (58.4%).
While 51.0% of those with severe disability used the internet for online banking, this was the case for 59.6% of those with moderate disability. However, for people with no disability, the share was 69.3%.
Source datasets: dsb_ictiu08, dsb_ictiu07, dsb_ictiu03 and dsb_ictiu04
Meanwhile, less than a quarter (19.5%) of severely disabled people used the internet for learning activities, while the figures were much higher for the moderately disabled and people without disabilities, at 27.1% and 35.8%, respectively.
While a little more than half of the severely disabled also use the internet for telephone or video calls (55.6%), this was the case for almost two thirds of people with moderate disability (64.7%) and three quarters of people with no disability (75.3%).
For more information
- Statistics Explained article on disability statistics – access to information and communication technologies
- Thematic section on disability
- Database on disability
- Key figures on European living conditions – 2024 edition
- Equality in the EU infographic
Methodological notes
Disability is approximated according to the concept of global activity limitation, which is defined as self-assessment of own level of limitation – because of health problems – in carrying out usual activities, for at least the previous 6 months. A person is considered as having a severe disability if they assessed their limitation in activities that people usually do as being severe. A person has a moderate disability if they declared as being limited in activities people usually do but not severely.
