TL;DR
Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software launched in Lithuania, the second European country after the Netherlands. Greece and Belgium are expected to follow, but Scandinavian regulators are pushing back and EU-wide approval faces a qualified majority vote with no date set.
Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software is no longer a single-country experiment in Europe. Lithuania became the second EU member state to approve FSD (Supervised) on Tuesday, just weeks after the Netherlands became the first. Greece and Belgium are expected to follow shortly.
The Lithuanian transport safety administration adopted the Dutch RDW’s prior certification rather than running its own testing programme. Under EU rules, member states can recognise another country’s type approval and allow the certified system onto their roads. It is a shortcut, but a legally valid one.
Tesla Europe confirmed the rollout on X, posting that FSD Supervised was now live for Lithuanian owners. The Greek transport ministry said an upcoming bill would grant approval, according to Reuters. Belgium is expected to follow the same RDW recognition route.
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The expansion matters for Tesla’s broader strategy. CEO Elon Musk’s $1 trillion compensation package is tied to hitting a series of product milestones, including 10 million active FSD subscriptions by 2035. The company currently has roughly 1.3 million FSD users globally, comprising 824,000 who purchased the software outright and 476,000 active monthly subscribers.
That subscriber count is growing fast. Tesla added 180,000 new FSD subscribers in Q1 2026, a 51 per cent jump from the previous quarter. In February, the company dropped the one-time purchase option entirely, making FSD available only through a $99 monthly subscription. The move removed the $15,000 upfront barrier and is generating roughly $546 million in annualised recurring revenue.
But the European rollout faces headwinds. The RDW is pushing for formal EU-wide recognition through the European Commission’s Technical Committee on Motor Vehicles. That requires a qualified majority: 55 per cent of member states representing 65 per cent of the bloc’s population. No vote has been scheduled yet, with the next committee meetings expected in July and October.
Emails obtained by Reuters revealed significant scepticism from Scandinavian regulators. Officials in Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Norway raised concerns about FSD’s tendency to exceed speed limits and its performance on icy roads. Tesla’s stated goal of EU-wide availability by summer 2026 looks increasingly ambitious.
For now, the country-by-country approach continues. Outside Europe, FSD (Supervised) is available in Australia, Canada, China, Mexico, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, South Korea, and the United States. The system still requires active driver supervision at all times, handling steering, lane changes, and parking but expecting the human behind the wheel to take over when needed.
FSD Unsupervised, the version that handles all driving without human intervention, remains limited to Tesla’s own robotaxi fleet operating in Austin, Dallas, and Houston. Musk has suggested that unsupervised capability could begin rolling out to eligible customers by the fourth quarter of 2026, though he has made and missed similar promises repeatedly over the past six years.
The gap between FSD’s European ambitions and Europe’s regulatory reality remains wide. Two countries down, 25 to go, and the ones raising objections are among the continent’s most influential on road safety policy. Tesla may be creeping into Europe, but the pace is set by Brussels, not by Musk’s timeline.
