Warehouse Capacity: Is Europe Ready for Peak?

Every year, the same conversation happens during the same week of September. Someone runs the numbers on inbound volume against available pallet positions, and the answer comes back tighter than expected. Then the scramble starts.

The difference this year is that the market has less slack than it did twelve months ago, and the buffer that used to absorb a late decision is thinning out.

If your Q4 capacity plan is still a draft, this is the moment to finalise it.

Key Takeaways 

• European logistics vacancy could fall below 5% as new supply hits a nine-year low.
• Western corridors such as Brussels to Antwerp are close to full (2.33% vacancy). CEE has more room (up to about 8%) but demand is strong.
• Grid power is now a site-selection constraint, not a detail.
• Contracted space beats verbal commitments. Space secured in August costs less and offers more choice than space secured in November.

How Tight Is the European Warehouse Market Going Into Q4?

European logistics take-up has been recovering steadily. Through 2025, quarterly take-up stabilised between 5 and 6 million square metres, still below the 9.6 million square metre peak recorded in Q4 2021, but a clear improvement on a difficult 2024. Forecasts point to continued moderate growth.

The more interesting number is on the supply side. Only around 3.8% of total European logistics stock was under construction by mid-2025, and twelve-month rolling completions are expected to hit a nine-year low as the development pipeline stays muted. A growing share of completed space is already committed before it opens.

Prologis research estimates Europe needs roughly €150 billion of new logistics space just to meet current consumption levels. The forecast is that European vacancy could fall below 5% if supply pipelines stay constrained and economic growth holds, which would make Europe one of the tightest logistics markets in the world. Prologis also describes power as the new location factor in its 2026 outlook.

None of this is a cliff. It is a slow squeeze, which is precisely why it catches people out. Nothing dramatic happens until the week you need space and there is none available in the corridor where you need it.

Where Is the Pressure Concentrated: Western Europe or CEE?

The averages hide a lot. Utilisation rates remain high in France, Germany, and the Netherlands, leaving very little room for overflow inventory when peak-season volume arrives. In some Western European corridors, availability is effectively nil. Vacancy along Belgium’s Brussels-to-Antwerp corridor stood at 2.33% at the end of 2025.

Central and Eastern Europe reads differently. Vacancy runs higher, at up to around 8% in Poland and the wider CEE region, but absorption is enormously strong, driven by nearshoring from Western Europe. Poland recorded roughly 1.6 million square metres of gross take-up in Q1 2026, up around 40% year-on-year, with net take-up rising by approximately 75%. The vacancy rate stood at 7.2%, with new supply of about 650,000 square metres.

That combination matters more than either figure alone. This is not a market absorbing renewals. New leases and expansions made up a significant share of activity, which means the demand has genuine depth. The Cseh Köztársaság és Románia have both posted strong annual take-up growth as well.

Read together, the picture is of a region with real available capacity and real competition for it.

Why Is Electricity Now a Warehouse Site-Selection Issue?

There is a newer bottleneck that has moved from a technical footnote to a genuine site-selection issue: electricity.

A legtöbb európai villamosenergia-hálózat a kapacitáshoz közel vagy azon van. Mivel a disztribúciós központok egyre inkább automatizáltak és elektromosokká válnak, energiaigényük meghaladja a rendelkezésükre álló összeköttetéseket. A modern, automatizálásra kész raktár megfelelő villamosenergia-kapacitásának biztosítása most már kritikus fontosságú, és egyes piacokon ez az egyetlen tényező, amely meghatározza, hogy egy adott helyszín működőképes-e egyáltalán.

For anyone planning capacity that involves automation, refrigeration, or electric vehicle charging infrastructure, power availability needs to be on the checklist alongside floor area and dock doors. It is not a detail that gets sorted out later. The same power constraint is shaping where life science manufacturers build, as we cover in Hol épít a Pharma a CEE-ben.

Mit kérnek valójában a bérlők

Where demand is strong, it is concentrated on a fairly specific building profile. Occupiers have consistently favoured high-specification stock: clear heights of 10 to 12 metres, strong floor loading, generous yard depth, and a design that meets environmental certification requirements.

Ennek oka van, és ez nem csak a preferenciák függvénye. A jelenlegi piaci aktivitás nagy részét az mutatja, hogy a vállalatok inkább a meglévő, kevésbé hatékony épületekből olyan ingatlanokba költöznek át, amelyek valóban alkalmasak az automatizált és energiaigényes működésre. A nettó befogadási kapacitás várhatóan csak 2027-ig fog teljesen visszaállni, pontosan azért, mert az új bérbeadások egy részét azzal ellentételezik, hogy másutt szabadulnak fel helyiségek.

The practical implication: the weakest assets are becoming more exposed, and the best assets are getting taken. If your Q4 plan depends on finding well-specified space in a strong corridor at short notice, you are competing for the smallest part of the market. Browse CTP’s logistics and warehouse solutions for build-to-suit and ready-to-occupy options.

Five Questions to Answer Before Peak Season

1. Mi az aktuális maximális forgalom-előrejelzésetek, nem pedig a tavalyi összeg plusz egy százalék?

A megelőző évre vonatkozó feltevésekre épülő maximális tervezés az, ami miatt a túlterhelési költségek jelentkeznek.

1. Hol található a puffered, fizikailag?

A két országban eltelt kapacitásfedezet az igénytől függetlenül egy tényező, nem pedig megoldás.

1. Van-e kapacitás a rendszeren az aktuálisan futtatandó feladatokhoz?

Ha automatizálást vagy hőmérséklet-szabályozást kíván bevezetni, erősítse meg az áramellátást, mielőtt bármi mást megerősít.

1. A tartalékhelyiséged szerződéses vagy csak tárgyalás alatt áll?

Egy olyan piacon, ahol a befejezett projektek száma kilenc év alacsony szintjét érte el, a szeptemberi szóbeli megállapodás novemberben nagyon kevés értéket képvisel.

1. Hogy néz ki a következő év?

If your peak requirement is becoming structural rather than seasonal, short-term overflow arrangements are an expensive way to solve a permanent problem.

Should You Secure Warehouse Capacity Early?

A piac nem válságban van. A befogadási igény mérsékelten nő, a kihasználtság a közép-kelet-európai régióban továbbra is elfogadható szinten marad, és a bérleti bevételek növekedése várhatóan 2% vagy annál nagyobb mértékben fog nőni 2026 és 2027 között.

But the direction of travel is clear. Supply is constrained by rising construction costs, planning restrictions, and grid capacity limits, none of which can be resolved quickly. Nearshoring continues to anchor demand in Central and Eastern Europe as production networks diversify away from Asia. And occupier surveys suggest that 47% intend to increase their footprints, against just 4% planning to reduce them.

Securing space in August costs less and gives you more choice than securing it in November. That has always been true. It is simply more true in a market where the pipeline is thinning.

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Author – CTP Research Team
Last updated  – 16 October 2026