If you’re dreaming of a European beach vacation, there are two countries with exceptionally clean water that you might not have considered.
The European Environment Agency (EEA), in cooperation with the European Commission, has released their European bathing water assessment for the 2024 bathing season, which declares that Slovenia and Lithuania have tied for first place for the cleanest coastal waters in the world.
The report assesses bathing water quality across 22,127 sites in the 27 EU member states, plus Albania and Switzerland. In the most recent assessment, 85 percent of the locations met the stringent standard of “excellent” bathing water quality, while 96 percent met the minimum quality standards. The sites include beachers, rivers, lakes, and swimming holes, which are all tested by national and local authorities for bacterial contamination.The quality of coastal bathing waters—defined as waters “situated on the sea or transitional water coastline”—was found to be generally better than that of rivers and lakes. It’s all part of the EU Bathing Water Directive, which was adopted in 2006.
It’s important to note that both Slovenia and Lithuania, while rated most highly, also had a relatively small number of sites tested, with only 21 tested in Slovenia and only 16 in Lithuania. But, the sites cumulatively gained top marks.
“The results … show that Europeans can confidently bathe in the vast majority of the EU’s bathing sites that meet the EU’s bathing quality standards,” Jessika Roswall, Commissioner for Environment, Water Resilience and a Competitive Circular Economy, said in a statement obtained by Travel + Leisure.
Slovenia, which famously has 29 miles on the Adriatic Sea, recently announced the launch of a digital nomad visa that will be available from November 2025 and will allow remote workers to live in the country for up to a year, similar to schemes available in other EU countries including Greece, Portugal, Spain, Croatia, Germany, and Estonia.
The most popular bases for a coastal Lithuanian vacation are Palanga, Neringa and Klaipeda. In 2024, Lithuania was ranked the happiest country in the world for young people under the age of 30, according to the World Happiness Report.
In 2024, Slovenia’s neighbor Croatia was ranked the highest for the cleanest coastal waters by the report, with 894 bodies of water tested.