This study offers an empirical exploration and critical assessment of absolute poverty trends and patterns in the EU from a welfare regime perspective. Absolute poverty is operationalized as extreme deprivation, that is, the enforced incapacity to afford certain goods and services. The empirical findings indicate that absolute poverty is low in the countries of the Social-democratic welfare regime and high in countries of the South-European (especially Greece) and the Liberal regime, whereas the countries of the Conservative-Corporatist welfare regime as well as Spain place themselves in-between.