Eurostar 2025 Impact Report

Public First has today published a new report for Eurostar, Fast Track to Growth: Boosting Britain through international high-speed rail, quantifying the economic, productivity and environmental benefits of international high-speed rail for the UK, and how these are set to grow over the next decade.

Drawing on new economic modelling, the report finds that Eurostar supported close to £2 billion of economic activity (GVA) and approximately 23,000 jobs across the UK in 2025, and that this contribution is expected to grow by over 40% by 2035 as new trains and new routes come into service:

• By 2035, Eurostar's economic contribution is expected to rise to approximately £2.8 billion, supporting 40,000 jobs across the UK, based on a projected 50% increase in passenger volumes on London routes over the next decade.
• Eurostar is investing £1.7 billion (€2 billion) in up to 50 new Celestia trains, the first double-deckers to operate on the UK network, offering around 20% more capacity and supporting new direct services from London to Geneva and Frankfurt.
• In 2025, the uninterrupted working time on board Eurostar, combined with travel time savings on some routes, generated £339 million in productivity benefits for UK businesses, the equivalent of 332,000 additional working days compared to air travel. This could reach £420 million per year by 2035, a cumulative £4.3 billion over the decade.
• Eurostar acts as a gateway for tourism, bringing 500,000 more tourists to the UK each year, trips that would not otherwise have taken place, generating £370 million in additional tourist spending.
• New direct services to Frankfurt and Geneva alone have the potential to free up to 20 aviation slot pairs per day at London's slot-constrained airports, allowing airlines to reallocate capacity to long-haul routes that cannot be served by rail.
• Eurostar produces an average of 96% lower emissions per journey than an equivalent flight. Modal shift from air to rail on core routes saved over 233,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions in 2025, with carbon savings worth up to £83 million annually.
• Development of Temple Mills depot in East London to maintain the new Celestia fleet would create 350 new highly skilled jobs, in addition to the 450 existing roles.

Read the full report here.