The IMF forecast that Britain will have the fastest growing economy in Europe.
False. IMF figures show several European countries are projected to have higher GDP growth than the UK in 2025 and 2026. The UK economy is forecast to be the fastest growing among European countries in the G7.
Posts on Facebook have repeated an inaccurate claim that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has forecast that the UK will have the fastest growing economy in Europe.
One of the posts says: “who didn’t have a quiet chuckle in the corner this week when the IMF forecasted that Britain will have the fastest growing economy in Europe?” and includes a screenshot of a post on X (formerly Twitter) sharing a link to an article published by the Independent which makes this claim in its headline.
But as we wrote last week when we first fact checked this claim, this isn’t what the latest IMF projections show, and the Independent has since updated its headline.
Figures published by the IMF in January project the UK’s GDP to increase by 1.6% in 2025 and 1.5% in 2026, but project that both Spain (2.3% and 1.8%) and Poland (3.5% and 3.3%) will have higher GDP growth in both years, while the Netherlands will have similar GDP growth in 2025 (1.6%) and higher growth in 2026 (1.8%).
It is true however that the IMF projects the UK will have higher GDP growth in 2025 and 2026 than the other European members of the G7 (Germany, France and Italy). This was reflected in comments from the chancellor Rachel Reeves, who said: “The UK is forecast to be the fastest growing major European economy over the next two years”.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because the IMF projects several European countries will have higher GDP growth than the UK in 2025 and 2026.
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