Logistics leasing rises 20.5% across Europe as occupiers rework supply chains

Savills' latest European logistics survey, reported by IREI, counts 14.01 million square meters of leasing in the first half of 2026. That is 20.5 percent ahead of the same period a year earlier. Spain led with a 62.8 percent jump in take-up. Italy was next at 56.9 percent. France, after a weak stretch, turned around sharply in the second quarter, with take-up up 154 percent quarter-over-quarter.

Savills credits a change in what occupiers are optimizing. Companies are putting supply-chain resilience ahead of pure cost efficiency, and that is showing up in nearshoring, friendshoring, defense-related manufacturing, and better logistics networks. At the same time, tenants are consolidating into fewer, larger, more efficient buildings. That reworking, Savills says, keeps take-up firm even when net absorption is modest, because tenants are making network decisions rather than expanding. A lease now often represents reconfiguration, not incremental growth.

Sam Quellyn-Roberts, a director in Savills' EMEA industrial and logistics occupational markets team, points to recent disruptions in the Middle East as amplifying these trends. "Rising fuel, energy, freight, and insurance costs have increased operational uncertainty," he says, pushing some manufacturers, retailers, and third-party logistics providers to delay expansion plans, consolidate facilities, or seek shorter, more flexible leases. Demand is real, but tenants are negotiating for room to move.

For private capital, the leasing data offer a concrete reading of industrial demand when income and certainty are what investors want, as IREI puts it. The gap between strong take-up and modest net absorption points to decisions about where and how goods move — nearshoring, defense-related manufacturing, network efficiency — not cyclical growth. That makes for a more durable tenant base. It also lines up with recent deals, among them LaSalle's purchase of a fully leased 1.1 million-square-foot Subaru hub from a Prologis-Browning joint venture, reported by Private Real Estate Daily. Office distress still dominates private real estate talk; the logistics numbers are a reminder of where capital keeps its confidence.