OBJECTIVES Non-VKA oral anticoagulants (NOAC), which do not need routine monitoring, have the potential to improve the quality of life (QoL) in patients on long-term treatment for venous thromboembolism (VTE). We aimed to obtain contemporary data on the health state of patients with VTE under daily practice conditions. METHODS PREFER in VTE is a non-interventional study in 7 countries (France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, UK) that prospectively documents patients after an event of acute deep venous thrombosis (DVT) or pulmonary embolism (PE) in terms of clinical characteristics, management, quality of life and other outcome parameters. The EuroQol EQ-5D-5L consists of the 5-dimension descriptive system used to derive utility scores and the visual analogue scale (VAS), measuring self-rated health (scale 0-100). RESULTS A total of 2790 patients with acute VTE at baseline (BL: 1640 DVT, 1150 PE ±DVT) and 723 patients at an interim analysis at 6 months (443 DVT and 280 PE ±DVT) completed the EQ-5D-5L. On the EQ VAS for current health state, the mean score at 6 months was 73.8 points (change from BL +10.9), with similar values in DVT patients (74.6, change from BL +9.8) compared to PE patients (72.4, change from BL +12.4). Between BL and 6-month follow-up, index values increased in all medication classes (heparin only: 0.66 to 0.75; heparin/VKA: 0.70 to 0.84; NOAC: 0.73 to 0.87). Overall the index value increased from 0.69 to 0.83 (DVT: 0.71 to 0.85, PE: 0.67 to 0.81). CONCLUSIONS Under clinical practice conditions, patients on NOAC and heparin/VKA had larger increases in their health state scores than those on heparin only. This generic QoL tool detected only small differences between treatment options. Six months after the event, patients with DVT had similar self-reported QoL on the VAS compared to patients with PE, and patients with DVT had somewhat higher utility values.