The dataset is the European Vegetation Archive (EVA), a comprehensive repository of vegetation-plot data from Europe. It contains detailed records of plant species occurrences and their abundance within defined plots, alongside associated environmental and methodological metadata. The primary purpose of EVA is to support large-scale analyses of vegetation patterns, classification, and ecology across the continent. Data is obtained through a formal request process and is subject to access regimes, with restricted data available only to contributors. Additionally, the dataset can be linked to plant trait data from the TRY consortium and phylogenetic data from the sPlot consortium for enhanced analysis.