EuroMillions is the closest thing to a shared European jackpot: a single draw, held in Paris every Tuesday and Friday, played across nine countries at once. But "shared" only goes so far. The moment you win, the country where you bought your ticket determines the currency you're paid in, the rules you claim under, and — most consequentially — whether you're taxed at all. Here's how the whole machine fits together.
Nine countries, one draw
EuroMillions is played in Austria, Belgium, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. (The UK stayed in after Brexit — it's a commercial partnership between national operators, not an EU institution.) Every one of those countries feeds into the same prize pool and the same numbers, drawn in euromillions' home city of Paris around 9pm CET on draw nights. Across the 1,962 draws we've tracked since 2004, it's the same five main numbers and two Lucky Stars every time, wherever the ticket was sold.
How you play
The format is identical everywhere: pick 5 main numbers from 1–50, plus 2 Lucky Stars from 1–12. Match all seven and you take the jackpot; eleven lower tiers pay for partial matches, down to a "Match 2 main numbers" prize.
- Jackpot odds: 1 in 139,838,160.
- Any prize: roughly 1 in 13 — unusually generous for a game this size, because of that extra bottom tier.
Each country also bolts on its own guaranteed-millionaire raffle: France's "My Million," Spain's "El Millón," Portugal's "M1lhão," Ireland's "Ireland Only Raffle," and the UK's "Millionaire Maker." Same core game, local twist.
The €250 million cap
Unlike an uncapped US jackpot, EuroMillions has a ceiling: €250 million. The jackpot starts at €17 million and rolls over when no one wins, but once it hits €250 million it's held there. Money that would otherwise keep growing it instead rolls down to the next tier (Match 5 + 1 Lucky Star), swelling those secondary prizes. If the capped jackpot still isn't won after a set number of draws, the next draw becomes a "Must Be Won" event, and the top prize rolls down to the highest tier that does have winners. The practical effect: near the cap, lots of players win unusually large secondary prizes.
One jackpot, many currencies
The game is drawn and denominated in euros, but not everyone plays in euros. The UK sells tickets in pounds and Switzerland in Swiss francs. When a jackpot is won in those countries, the advertised euro amount is converted and paid in local currency at the draw-day exchange rate — so a "£" winner's actual total shifts a little with the euro/pound rate on the night. (A footnote for precision: non-jackpot UK prizes are set by a contribution-based formula reflecting UK ticket sales, not a raw currency conversion — so only the jackpot tracks the exchange rate directly.)
Ticket prices vary too: £2.50 in the UK, CHF 3.50 in Switzerland, and €2.50 in the seven euro-playing countries.
Where you buy is where you claim
This is the rule that surprises international players: you claim in the same country where you bought the ticket. EuroMillions' own guidance is explicit — "any prizes you won must be claimed in the same country as where you purchased the ticket." You can't buy in France and collect in Spain. You claim in the country of purchase, in that country's currency, under that country's process and deadlines. A ticket is tied to the jurisdiction that sold it.
That matters for practical reasons — a tourist who wins on a ticket bought abroad has to claim through that country's lottery, often in person for a large prize — and it matters enormously for tax.
The tax twist: same win, very different take-home
Because your prize is taxed under the rules of the country of purchase, the identical winning ticket can be worth wildly different amounts depending on where it was bought:
- Tax-free: the UK and Ireland pay EuroMillions prizes out entirely tax-free. A £100 million UK winner keeps £100 million. (See UK Lottery Winnings and Tax.)
- Taxed at source: Spain withholds 20% on the portion of a prize above a tax-free threshold, and Portugal applies a 20% stamp duty above its own threshold — so a large Spanish or Portuguese winner nets meaningfully less. (See Spain and Portugal Lottery Tax.)
- Also taxed at source: Switzerland levies 35% on very large wins (above about CHF 1 million). The remaining countries — France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Austria — pay the prize tax-free but tax the income you later earn on it.
So two people can match the same seven numbers in the same draw and walk away with very different sums — purely because of which side of a border they bought their ticket.
The bottom line
EuroMillions is genuinely pan-European where it counts — the same numbers, the same €250 million-capped jackpot, the same Tuesday-and-Friday rhythm across nine countries. But it's stubbornly national the moment you win: you claim at home, in your currency, under your country's rules and taxes. If you're comparing it to its sibling game, see EuroMillions vs EuroJackpot — they share identical jackpot odds but differ in almost everything else.