24official national guides: 23 EU members and the UK
3 → 14days of supplies asked, from the EU minimum to Austria
6items on every single list, out of 53
4EU members with no national household list
Story angles
Each angle links to a full article with interactive charts and sources.
1
Austria asks for two weeks. The EU asks for three days.
Twenty of 24 national guides stop at the EU's 72-hour minimum. Sweden and Estonia ask households to last a week, Germany ten days, and Austria two weeks, nearly five times the EU baseline. For a family of four, that is the difference between 36 litres of water and 168.
2
Europe's emergency lists agree on just six items
Only drinking water, a torch, a radio, regular medication, a first-aid kit and cash appear in all 24 guides. More than half of the 53 items we mapped appear in fewer than half of the guides.
3
The EU stresses toilets. Three countries mention one.
The Commission's 30 October 2026 guidance tells authorities to cover sanitation, "in particular toilet use". Only Germany, Sweden and Poland list an emergency toilet, such as a bucket with a lid and bags, although every home needs one when the water stops.
4
Cyprus lists 12 items, Czechia 39
National guides differ more than threefold in thoroughness. Czechia and Poland name the most items while planning for only 72 hours. Estonia plans for a week with 18. Cyprus and Portugal publish short lists built around a single scenario.
5
Neighbours don't copy each other
Sweden's list is closest to Slovakia's (72% of items in common), and France's is closest to Lithuania's. The Nordic countries don't form a bloc. Lists written with crisis and war in mind resemble each other more than lists from neighbouring countries do.
6
Four EU countries publish no household list
Spain, Italy, Hungary and Malta publish no national household emergency checklist. Spain has a regional one, in Catalonia. Only four guides, from Finland, Belgium, Denmark and Austria, mention iodine tablets.
Interactive
The darker the block, the longer a country asks you to last. The taller, the more items its guide lists.
Charts to download
High-resolution PNGs (2×) with the source credit built in. Click to download.
Europe at a glanceDays asked and items listed, per country
Days of supplies3 days to 2 weeks, one square per day
Items per guideRanked, Czechia 39 to Cyprus 12
ConsensusHow many guides list each item
Iodine tabletsThe four countries that list them
Emergency toiletThe three countries that list one
The full matrix53 items × 24 countries
SimilarityHow much each pair of lists overlaps
Data
The dataset behind every chart, as UTF-8 CSV. It is generated from the same files as the live site, so it always matches it.
- Items × countries (CSV): one row per item, one column per country, 1 if the guide lists it.
- Countries (CSV): each guide, its link, the days it plans for and how many items it lists.
How we built it
For each country we used the household preparedness guide published by its national civil-protection authority, with links in the countries file. Items that guides describe in different words ("torch", "flashlight", "lamp") were merged into one of 53 checklist items. An item counts as listed only if the guide names it. Durations are the figure each guide states. Our checklist marks an item as essential when at least a quarter of the guides list it for every household.
Republishing
Charts, figures and data are free to republish in print, online and on air, with the credit:
Source: Seventy-Two (emergency72.eu), compiled from 24 official national guides
Online, please link to emergency72.eu or to the article you cite.
Fact sheet
- What
- A free, independent household emergency checklist for Europe that combines the official guides of 24 countries and works out quantities for each household.
- Coverage
- 23 EU member states and the United Kingdom. Spain, Italy, Hungary and Malta publish no national household list.
- Languages
- All 24 official EU languages.
- Launched
- November 2026, days after the European Commission's guidance on 72-hour self-sufficiency (SWD(2026) 826, 30 October 2026).
- Independence
- Not affiliated with the European Union or any government. No government endorses any product we suggest.
- Funding
- Amazon affiliate links, marked "Sponsored" on the site. Visitors pay nothing extra. Product suggestions are checked for stock every day.
- Privacy
- Household details entered on the site stay on the visitor's device.
- Also
- A 72-hour readiness test with grades from A to F, and 65 articles on preparedness.
About Seventy-Two
Seventy-Two (emergency72.eu) is a free, independent guide to household emergency preparedness in Europe. It combines the official emergency supply guides of 24 European countries into one checklist, available in all 24 official EU languages, and works out the quantities each household needs to cope on its own for 72 hours or longer. It is not affiliated with the European Union or any government.
