<p>The National checklists and red lists for European butterflies is a species checklist dataset published by the Research Institute of Nature and Forest (INBO). It is described in Maes et al. (2019, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10841-019-00127-z) and compiled from national species lists and red lists from nearly all European countries to prioritize butterfly conservation actions. It covers all 496 butterfly species recognized by Wiemers et al. (2018) to occur in Europe, and includes the occurrence status for 42 countries, including the Macaronesian archipelagos (Azores, Madeira and Canary Islands), and the red list status for 33 of these. Here it is published as a standardized Darwin Core Archive and includes for each species: the scientific name, higher classification and taxon identifier (in the taxon core), the occurrence status, red list status and sources this is based on per country or Macaronesian island(group) (in the distribution extension), and the English vernacular name (in the vernacular name extension). Issues with the dataset can be reported at https://github.com/inbo/eurobutt-checklist/issues</p><p>We have released this dataset to the public domain under a Creative Commons Zero waiver. We would appreciate it if you follow the INBO norms for data use (https://www.inbo.be/en/norms-data-use) when using the data. If you have any questions regarding this dataset, don't hesitate to contact us via the contact information provided in the metadata or via opendata@inbo.be.</p>