OBJECTIVES: In long-term studies, achieving sustained virologic response (SVR) after hepatitis C treatment is associated with reduced progression to advanced liver disease. This study aims to assess if SVR status is associated with short-term health care utilization benefits in the European Union. METHODS: A retrospective chart review of chronic hepatitis C patients who received peginterferon plus ribavirin (PR) therapy was conducted in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain. Descriptive analyses reported standardized annual rates of hospitalizations, emergency/accident visits (EA), family physician/general practitioner visits (GP), specialist visits (SP), and having ≥5 clinical tests (TESTS). Logistic regression models were applied to assess the impact of SVR on aforementioned outcomes. RESULTS: A total of 165 physicians collected data for 615 patients (baseline data: mean age 43.7 years, 33% female, 90% Caucasian, 85% genotype-1, 26% viral load >1,000,000 IU/mL, 25% prior treatment failure [TF]). PR was administered for a median of 9.1 months (interquartile range: 5.3–11.9); median post-treatment follow-up was 6.0 months (interquartile range: 2.0–10.0). A total of 54% of patients achieved SVR. Compared with non-SVR patients, SVR patients had significantly fewer annual hospitalizations (0.3 versus 1; p<0.05) with shorter hospital stays (6.5 versus 8.0 days), significantly fewer annual EA (0.7 versus 1.3, p<0.05), and comparable GP, SP, and TESTS one year after treatment. When controlling for confounding factors (age, weight, gender, genotype, time between diagnosis and treatment initiation, alcohol intake, past intravenous drug use, pre-treatment liver biopsy, steatosis, pre-viral RNA, and TF status), SVR remained associated with significantly less risk for hospitalization (OR=0.499, 95% CI=0.277–0.899) and EA (OR=0.52, 95% CI=0.30–0.89). Similar results were found in the genotype-1 patients. CONCLUSIONS: Patients who achieve SVR have a significantly lower risk of hospitalization and emergency visits than non-SVR patients one year after PR therapy. This analysis confirms short-term health care utilization benefits of achieving SVR with hepatitis C treatment.