The most current and accurate estimate points at over 100 million persons with disabilities living in the European Union, which includes 99 million persons according to the EU-SILC survey of 2016 and 1 million persons estimated to be segregated in residential institutions and therefore not represented in the survey.
Problems with estimates
Due to the lack of disaggregated and comparative census data we can only provide estimates. Some EU countries do not ask about disability in their census, and among those who do, there are different questions and ways of establishing disabilities. We strongly advocate for all European countries to implement the Washington Group set of questions in census. These are a short set of questions designed to identify persons with disabilities in a survey format.