Radio Télévision Luxembourg (RTL) dominates Luxembourg’s media landscape. Whether through television, radio or the internet, this group — whose state subsidies are equivalent to the aid the state gives to all other media outlets combined — reaches the vast majority of the population every week. The Luxemburger Wort, a daily newspaper bought from the archdiocese in 2020 by the Belgian publisher Mediahuis, is read daily by around a quarter of the population. The second most-read daily, L'Essentiel, is free. In the south of the country, Tageblatt, a media outlet owned by a left-wing labour union, is losing ground. 

Since 2023, Luxembourg’s parliamentary monarchy has been led by the Christian Social People’s Party, which is associated with the Liberals. When Prime Minister Luc Frieden was at the helm of the Saint Paul group, the country’s biggest publishing house, he led the main daily newspaper, Luxemburger Wort, towards a more business-friendly editorial line. In 2025, the Belgian publishing house appointed a new editor-in-chief. For a long time, each party had a newspaper aligned with its interests and, although these affiliations have ended, some subordination persists insidiously. For the most part, the media operate independently and journalists enjoy plenty of freedom from political power. 

Luxembourg law guarantees freedom of expression and the protection of sources. The government has promised media representatives a law guaranteeing access to public information, which has been limited in recent years because of the protection of personal data. The bill has been under discussion in Parliament since 2025.

The leading daily newspapers have seen a decline in subscriptions and advertising in recent years, which has forced them to reorient their activities. In the name of pluralism, a law passed in 2021 provides each journalist with 30,000 euros a year in state aid and every publication with a lump sum of 200,000 euros. But media outlets, numerous given the size of the national market, remain under pressure and the Grand Duchy’s small size encourages conflicts between the media’s work and various economic interests.

The press is widely read in Luxembourg, and the public’s level of respect for journalists is one of the highest in the European Union, according to the European Commission. Banking secrecy and tax evasion have long remained off limits in the national press. When the LuxLeaks journalistic revelations shed light on Luxembourg’s tax optimisation industry thanks to two employees of an auditing firm, one of them, Raphaël Halet, was fined by the court. In 2023, he was finally recognised as a whistleblower by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which condemned Luxembourg for violating freedom of expression. 

In a general manner, media professionals work in a safe environment. Some journalists have been threatened on social media in connection with the Covid-19 pandemic or intimidated during protests against health restrictions.