Search engine market share in Europe

Google has about 89% of European search, and Bing about 5%

Google took 88.97% of European search referrals in September 2026 and Bing 5.34%, per StatCounter Global Stats across all platforms. On desktop alone the gap narrows sharply: Google 74.68%, Bing 14.66%.

Those figures count referrals (visits arriving at a website from a search engine's results page), not searches performed. StatCounter's "Europe" also includes Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, where Yandex held 70.33, 38.54 and 6.26% in September 2026. That is the only reason Yandex appears third at 2.39%; it is not a measure of Yandex use in the European Union.

Regulators found Google's position stronger, not weaker. The European Commission found in 2018 that Google was dominant in general search "in all 31 EEA Member States," with "shares of more than 90% in most" of them. In its 2024 decision not to designate Bing under the Digital Markets Act, the Commission recorded Bing's share of clicks across all devices in the EU at about 3.3% for 2020 to 2022, and quoted Microsoft's own description of Bing as "25 times smaller than Google Search, which has a share of 92%." In the United Kingdom, the Competition and Markets Authority found in 2025 that Google handles more than 90% of general search queries and Bing less than 5%.

No large European market has a domestic engine to compare with Naver in Korea or Yandex in Russia; only Czechia's Seznam holds a double-digit share. Qwant and Ecosia, the best-known European alternatives, are hybrids drawing on Bing and others, and each is under 2% at home.

The large national markets

Germany

Google 87.84% and Bing 6.49% in September 2026, up from 5.84% for Bing in August. Ecosia, based in Berlin, reached 1.03% in its home market.

France

Google 88.16%, Bing 5.47%, Yahoo! 2.75%, Ecosia 1.34% and Qwant 0.86%. Qwant runs some crawling of its own, and a home-market share under 1% is close to the ceiling any Western European alternative has reached.

United Kingdom

StatCounter gives Google 91.39% and Bing 6.08% across all platforms, but Bing 18.33% on desktop. The CMA's figures are the better evidence for the UK: more than 90% of general search queries for Google and less than 5% for Bing, from compelled data and counting search-grounded AI queries.

Netherlands

Bing had 4.57% in the Netherlands in September 2026, against Google's 89.14%, one of its lower figures among the twelve European countries checked. The Dutch table also shows Yandex at 2.57%, ahead of Yahoo!. That row is very likely bot or tracker noise, and Yandex figures for Western Europe should be treated as artifacts.

Poland

Google 89.56% and Bing 7.38%, in the upper half of Bing's European markets. Read Yandex at 1.44% with the same caution as in the Netherlands.

Czechia

Google 78.71%, Seznam 15.05% and Bing 4.73%: the lowest Google share of any EU market checked, and the subject of its own section below.

Where Bing is strongest in Europe

Among the twelve European countries checked for this page, Bing's highest all-platform shares in September 2026 were in Switzerland and Austria, the only two above 10%.

Smaller states, including Luxembourg, Liechtenstein and the Balkans, were not checked, so "strongest" means strongest among these twelve.

The European Commission's 2017 Google Shopping decision found that since 2009 Bing had never exceeded 10% in any EEA country, largely on StatCounter referral data through 2016. Austria, an EEA member, now sits above that line on the same kind of measure; Switzerland is outside the EEA.

The desktop figures explain where Bing's share comes from. Its European desktop share of 14.66% is nearly three times its all-platform share, and in the UK the ratio is three to one. Bing is the default on Windows and in Microsoft's Edge browser, and the US federal court in United States v. Google found Bing's share of searches on Edge to be about 80%, the mirror image of Google's share elsewhere (that judgment is on appeal). Bing's European position is a default position, not a measure of preference.

Czechia and Seznam, the last domestic engine in double digits

Seznam is the only search engine based in the European Union with its own crawler and index and a double-digit national share. It launched in 1996, before Google, and has been declining for a quarter-century: about 53% in 2000, 42.84% in May 2012, about 26% at the end of 2018, 15.63% in August 2026 and 15.05% in September 2026, per the Seznam profile's series and StatCounter.

The Commission's 2017 Shopping decision found Google above 85% in every EEA country since 2008 except the Czech Republic and Slovenia, and above 70% in those two since 2011. Its 2018 Android decision lists Seznam among the firms that "use their own search engine," yet the same decision still found Google dominant in all 31 EEA states, the Czech Republic included.

Qwant, Ecosia and the Staan index

• Qwant (France) is a hybrid: its own crawler, results from Bing, and now results from Staan. It became the default search engine of the European Parliament from 4 June 2026. StatCounter France: 0.86%.
• Ecosia (Germany) is also a hybrid, drawing on Bing, Google and the joint venture's index. Its help center listed all three as result providers on 12 August 2026. StatCounter: 1.03% in Germany, 1.34% in France.
• European Search Perspective (EUSP) is a 50:50 Qwant–Ecosia joint venture based in Paris, announced in November 2024. Its index, Staan, began serving Qwant and Ecosia queries on 6 August 2025. The stated aim at launch was to serve about half of French queries and a third of German queries by the end of 2025, and Ecosia's chief executive claimed it could deliver search features "at a tenth of the cost" of Google's and Bing's.

Those are targets and claims, not results. No primary statement has been found on whether the end-2025 targets were met, what share of either engine's queries Staan now answers, or whether it has any outside customer. TechCrunch's launch report of 6 August 2025 is the source for the targets and the cost claim.

Beyond Seznam, the UK's Mojeek also runs its own index, at a far smaller scale.

What EU regulation has, and has not, changed

• June 2017: Google Shopping (AT.39740). Fine widely reported as €2.42 billion; upheld by the General Court in 2021 and the Court of Justice in 2024.
• 18 July 2018: Google Android (AT.40099). Fine of €4,342,865,000 for illegal practices regarding Android devices that strengthened the dominance of Google's search engine. Compliance later included an Android search choice screen in the EEA.
• 2022: General Court. Android decision largely upheld; fine set at €4.125 billion (Case T-604/18).
• March 2024: Digital Markets Act obligations apply, including browser and search choice screens on Android and iOS and, under Article 6(11), licensed access to Google's search data for rival engines.
• 2024: Bing not designated under the DMA, despite crossing its user thresholds.
• 2 July 2026: Court of Justice confirms the Android fine, described below.

The DMA choice screens

The Commission's staff working document accompanying its DMA review, SWD(2026) 123, found the measured gains went to rival browsers, not rival search engines, and that there has been no meaningful uptake of Google's Article 6(11) search-data licensing. Those browser figures are self-reported by the vendors, and the Commission stresses it is early in implementation. A Knight-Georgetown Institute working paper found that the gains from Google's DMA results-page redesign in the travel vertical went to smaller comparison sites rather than the largest ones. Neither shows a measurable gain for any rival search engine, and Google's StatCounter share in Europe was still about 89% in September 2026. A National Bureau of Economic Research field experiment points the same way: only 1.2% of desktop Google users shown an active choice screen switched to Bing, though its younger, more technical sample limits how far that travels.

The Court of Justice's Android judgment, 2 July 2026

On 2 July 2026 the Court of Justice of the European Union dismissed Google's appeal in Case C-738/22 P, confirming the €4,125,000,000 fine set by the General Court, of which Alphabet is jointly and severally liable for €1,520,605,895. There is no further appeal. The Court's press release No 93/26 contains no market-share figures; the share findings it upholds are the Commission's 2018 ones, that Google was dominant in all 31 EEA states with more than 90% in most.

The judgment settles liability for past conduct. It changes no current share figure.

When this page was last checked

Every StatCounter figure was read from gs.statcounter.com on 27 October 2026 for the September 2026 reporting month, with August 2026 values where stated. The regulator figures carry their own dates: the Commission's Android findings date from 2018, its Bing click share covers 2020 to 2022, and the CMA's UK findings are from 2025. For the current worldwide split and for countries outside Europe, the site's other market-share guides carry the latest month.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• European Commission — Antitrust: Commission fines Google €4.34 billion for illegal practices regarding Android mobile devices to strengthen dominanc… (2018, PDF)
• Court of Justice of the European Union — Court of Justice of the European Union, Press Release No 93/26, Judgment in Case C-738/22 P, Google and Alp… (2026, PDF)
• European Commission, DG Competition — Commission Decision in Case DMA.100015, Microsoft / Online Search Engines (non-designation of Bing under Artic… (2024, PDF)
• European Commission — Commission Staff Working Document accompanying the DMA Review Report, SWD(2026) 123 final (2026, PDF)
• European Commission — Commission Decision of 27.6.2017, Case AT.39740 Google Search (Shopping), Table 1 (recital 188) and footnote 114 (NetMarketSha… (2017, PDF)
• European Commission — Commission Decision of 18.7.2018, Case AT.40099 Google Android, recital 814(3) (2018, PDF)
• UK Competition and Markets Authority — Final Decision: Strategic Market Status Investigation into Google's General Search Services (2025, PDF)
• US District Court for the District of Columbia — Memorandum Opinion, United States of America v. Google LLC, No. 1:20-cv-03010-APM (Redacted Public … (2024, PDF)
• Knight-Georgetown Institute, Georgetown University — Who Benefits from Google's SERP? The Impact of the DMA on Online Search Results (2026, PDF)
• gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share/all/europe
• gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share/all/czech-republic
• techcrunch.com/2025/08/06/qwant-and-ecosia-debut-staan-a-european-search-ind…