In the median country with data, about 17% of people who dealt with a public official in the past year paid a bribe or were asked for one, this share has stayed roughly stable in countries with comparable surveys, and the average score on the main perception index fell to 42 out of 100 in 2025.
Updated October 14, 2026. Written from the sources listed below, not independently peer-reviewed.
Across 139 countries with survey data, what share of people who dealt with a public official in the past year paid a bribe or were asked for one, in the median country?
17%
People asked for or paying a bribe
Median share of people in contact with a public official in the past year who paid a bribe or were asked for one, across 139 countries and territories (2024 or latest year available). Survey-based; does not capture grand corruption.
Data year 2024. Source: OHCHR, UNDP, UNICEF and UNODC, 2026
18.6%
Firms facing bribery in low-income countries
Median share of businesses that paid or were asked for a bribe when dealing with officials, compared with 2.4% in high-income countries. Firms may under-report, so this is likely a lower bound.
Data year 2024. Source: OHCHR, UNDP, UNICEF and UNODC, 2026
122 of 182
Countries scoring below 50 on the Corruption Perceptions Index
About two-thirds of countries and territories score below 50 on the 0 to 100 scale. The global average fell to 42, its first drop in more than a decade.
Data year 2025. Source: Transparency International, 2026
Unit: % of businesses
The two period values reported in the 2026 Global Progress Report on SDG 16 Indicators, plotted at the end year of each period: 2016 stands for surveys from 2010 to 2016 and 2024 for surveys from 2017 to 2024. In lower-middle-income countries the median fell from 21.75% to 13.9% over the same periods. Business surveys are likely to understate bribery. Bribery experienced by people, measured in 63 countries with data in both 2010–2017 and 2018–2025, stayed roughly stable.
SDG target 16.5 calls for a substantial reduction in corruption and bribery in all their forms. Business bribery has declined moderately in all income groups, but among 63 countries with comparable surveys, the share of people facing bribery has stayed roughly stable since the early 2010s. The UN notes that bribery remains widespread, and that the available data do not capture grand corruption.
Among people who dealt with public officials, the median bribery rate is 24% in sub-Saharan Africa and 22.5% in Central and Southern Asia, compared with 9% in Europe and Northern America.
Source: OHCHR, UNDP, UNICEF and UNODC, 2026Income does not explain everything: within sub-Saharan Africa, national bribery rates range from 5% to 80% of people in contact with officials.
Source: United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Statistics Division, 2026In the 23 countries with data broken down by sex, the median bribery rate was 17% for men and 12% for women who had contact with public officials.
Source: OHCHR, UNDP, UNICEF and UNODC, 2026Since 2012, 150 journalists have been killed outside conflict zones while covering corruption-related stories, and more than 90% of these killings took place in countries scoring below 50 on the Corruption Perceptions Index.
Source: Transparency International, 2026Each country is shaded by its latest available value, so you can see where the gap is widest. Hover or tap a country, search for one, or open the full table.
Loading country values…
Values in % of firms.
Share of firms that faced at least one bribe request in six routine dealings with the state (utility connections, permits, licences and taxes), from World Bank Enterprise Surveys of formal private firms. Values are the latest survey year per country (years differ, 2016 to 2025, most 2023 or later); older surveys are not shown. Firms may not report bribery, so values are likely lower bounds, and the indicator covers petty bribery of businesses, not grand corruption or bribery experienced by households.
Source: World Bank Enterprise Surveys, via World Bank Open Data. Latest year available per country; years differ.
Values load from World Bank Open Data. Simplified Natural Earth borders; they imply no position on disputed territories.
Instead of one “percent solved” score, DO GOOD rates three separate dimensions. A problem can have mature solutions that still reach too few people. These ratings are an editorial reading of the sources on this page, not a measured index.
Has the situation improved in the real world?
LowBribery experienced by people has stayed roughly stable in the 63 countries with comparable surveys from 2010–2017 and 2018–2025. Business bribery fell moderately, from a median of 21.0% to 12.3% in low-income countries, but the UN still describes bribery as widespread.
How mature and validated are the available solutions?
ModerateEstablished tools such as access-to-information laws, budget oversight, tax and customs enforcement and beneficial ownership registers are well defined, and some documented successes exist, such as Ghana's 78% reduction in illicit financial flows between 2019 and 2023. But evidence on which combinations reduce corruption in which settings remains thin.
How widely are effective solutions actually used?
Moderate141 countries have access-to-information laws and 101 have a dedicated oversight body, but in a test in 76 countries 38% of information requests received no substantive response. Compliance with international beneficial ownership standards has been described as relatively low.
Survey data on bribery exist for 139 countries, but only 63 have data for trend comparisons and 23 for women and men separately. Grand corruption escapes surveys, perception indices measure opinion rather than incidence, and official estimates of crime-related illicit flows exist for only nine countries.
Business bribery has declined in lower-income countries, while bribery experienced by people has stayed level. Perceived corruption worsened in 2025, and 36 of the 50 countries whose scores declined significantly since 2012 also restricted civic space.
Corruption is the abuse of public power or position for private gain. It ranges from small bribes demanded at a permit office or for a utility connection to large-scale schemes in which political and business elites divert public money. Petty bribery is the form that is best measured: in the median country among 139 with survey data, about 17% of people who had contact with a public official in the past year paid a bribe or were asked for one. Businesses face it too, especially when they need utility connections, permits, licences or tax services. Large-scale corruption is closely tied to illicit financial flows, money that is illegal in its source, its transfer or its use and that leaves countries through trade misinvoicing, tax abuse, crime or theft. UNCTAD estimated in 2020 that illicit capital flight from Africa averaged about $88.6 billion a year, equal to 3.7% of the continent's GDP.
The burden is uneven. Bribery is most common in low-income countries, where the median rate among people dealing with officials is 27%, compared with 9% in high-income countries, and the median share of businesses affected is 18.6% in low-income countries against 2.4% in high-income countries. Bribery can undermine trust in public institutions, and it raises the cost of doing business, distorts competition and discourages investment. When public money leaks away, less is left for public services: in African countries with high illicit outflows, governments spent 25% less on health and 58% less on education than countries with low outflows. Corruption also endangers those who expose it: of the 829 journalists killed outside conflict zones since 2012, 150 were reporting on corruption-related stories.
Corruption is largely hidden, so no single number captures it. SDG target 16.5 calls on countries to substantially reduce corruption and bribery in all their forms, and target 16.4 to significantly reduce illicit financial flows by 2030. Four kinds of measurement are used, each covering a different part of the problem:
Bribery experienced by people
SDG indicator 16.5.1 is the share of people who had at least one contact with a public official in the previous 12 months and who paid a bribe or were asked for one. It comes from household surveys and reflects direct experience rather than opinion, but it does not capture grand corruption involving political and business elites.
Bribery experienced by businesses
SDG indicator 16.5.2 applies the same question to firms. The World Bank Enterprise Surveys ask firms whether they were asked for a bribe in six routine dealings with the state, covering utility connections, permits, licences and taxes. Because firms may not disclose bribery, the estimates are likely to be a lower bound.
Perceptions of public-sector corruption
Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index combines 13 independent data sources into a score from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean) for 182 countries and territories. It measures how corrupt the public sector is perceived to be, not how often corruption actually occurs.
Illicit financial flows
SDG indicator 16.4.1 aims to measure money that crosses borders illegally, for example through trade misinvoicing, tax abuse or the proceeds of crime and corruption. Measurement is still at an early stage: official estimates of crime-related flows exist for nine countries, and 23 countries have piloted estimates of tax and commercial flows.
What works
Laws that give people the right to request information from public bodies let citizens, journalists and auditors check how decisions are made and money is spent. 141 countries had adopted such laws by 2026, and 101 have a dedicated oversight body; UNESCO's monitoring gives an average implementation score of 6.12 out of 9.
Limits
Many laws are not applied in practice. In a test across 76 countries, 38% of requests received no substantive response and only 42% led to full disclosure, and 26 of the countries with an oversight body scored below 4.5 out of 9 for implementation.
What works
When governments spend close to what parliaments approved and publish the results, it becomes harder to divert money unnoticed. The global average gap between approved and actual spending narrowed from 12.6% in 2020 to 10.2% in 2024, and most high-income and upper-middle-income countries keep it below 7%.
Limits
Low-income countries had the largest gaps, with a median of about 11.8% between 2021 and 2024. A budget that is executed as planned can still contain inflated contracts, so budget reliability is only one part of public integrity.
What works
Checking transfer prices and the declared value of exports can stop money leaving a country through misinvoiced trade. Ghana documented a 78% reduction in illicit financial flows from 2019 to 2023 after strengthening transfer-pricing enforcement and customs valuation controls.
Limits
Pilot studies in African countries found trade-related illicit flows equal to 5% to 30% of the official value of goods trade, concentrated in a few exports such as gold, oil, timber and copper. Results depend on data, skilled staff and cooperation across government agencies, which the UN report calls a whole-of-government approach.
What works
A central register of the real people who own and control companies and other legal vehicles helps investigators link apparently unrelated firms to the same owners and makes it harder to hide stolen assets behind anonymous shell companies. Many countries have adopted such registers, and the UN FACTI panel recommended central, verified registers covering all legal vehicles, with public access strongly encouraged.
Limits
The FACTI panel described compliance with the international standard as relatively low and found gaps in the information collected, its verification and sanctions for false filings. Secretive structures such as some trusts remain loopholes, and poorer countries need support to build and check registers.
What works
Independent justice institutions, journalists and civil society groups expose abuses and hold officials to account. Transparency International notes that full democracies tend to score highly on the Corruption Perceptions Index, and it calls for protecting civic space and media freedom.
Limits
Many governments are tightening restrictions on civil society and the press, which makes it hard or dangerous to challenge abuses of power. Of the 50 countries whose perception scores declined significantly since 2012, 36 also reduced civic space.
Promising, but not proven at scale. The stage shows how far each approach has come; it is not a recommendation.
UNCTAD and UNODC have developed methods to measure illicit financial flows for SDG indicator 16.4.1. 23 countries, led by 14 in Africa, have piloted estimates of tax and commercial flows, and official estimates of crime-related flows exist for nine countries, including opiate trafficking proceeds. Measurement remains a major challenge.
The UN FACTI panel proposed that registries use common definitions and a standard data format, record ownership history, and check entries with automated cross-checks and risk-based human review, with sanctions such as exclusion from public procurement for false filings. How far countries adopt verification of this kind is still uneven.
Instead of counting laws, monitoring now checks how they work: participation in UNESCO's annual survey on access to information grew from 43 countries in 2019 to 123 in 2025, and a stress test filed real requests in 76 countries to see whether public bodies respond.
Knowledge gap
Experience surveys capture petty bribery but not large-scale corruption involving political and business elites, which is where the largest sums are lost. Perception indices fill part of the gap but measure opinion rather than incidence.
Knowledge gap
Only 63 countries have bribery surveys from both 2010–2017 and 2018–2025 to show a trend, only 23 have data for women and men separately, and official estimates of crime-related illicit financial flows exist for nine countries.
Implementation gap
141 countries have access-to-information laws, yet in a test across 76 countries 38% of requests received no substantive response. Similar gaps between rules and enforcement affect other anti-corruption laws.
Technology gap
Registers often hold incomplete or unverified data in formats that cannot be matched across countries, so investigators cannot trace the real owners of companies and trusts. Building verification systems needs data standards and technical capacity that many countries lack.
Coordination gap
Illicit wealth is often moved and hidden abroad with the help of professional service providers. Tracing and returning it depends on cooperation between financial centres, tax authorities and courts in several countries, and Transparency International calls on the countries where such wealth ends up to do more to ensure accountability.
Implementation gap
Restrictions on civil society, journalists and NGOs make it harder and more dangerous to expose abuse. 150 journalists covering corruption-related stories have been killed outside conflict zones since 2012.
Unresolved questions, not vetted breakthroughs. Answering any of them would change what is possible.
Experience surveys miss large-scale corruption by elites. Which combination of data, such as procurement records, ownership registers, asset recoveries and audits, could give a reliable and comparable measure of it?
Business bribery has declined in lower-income countries while bribery experienced by people has stayed roughly stable. Which services and contacts with officials drive this, and why have reforms not reached them?
Do public and verified beneficial ownership registers measurably reduce the use of anonymous companies to hide illicit wealth, or does the activity move to jurisdictions and legal structures that are not covered?
In the few countries with data, men report bribery more often than women. Is this because of differences in contact with officials, in the services used, or in willingness to report, and what does it mean for policy?
If your country has an access-to-information law, you can request documents on local budgets, contracts or services. Each request also tests whether the law works in practice.
Consider subscribing to or donating to independent media and civil society organisations that investigate how public money is spent, and that publish how they are funded.
If you are asked for a bribe, find out whether your country has an anti-corruption agency, ombudsperson or whistleblower hotline, and what protection it offers before you report.
Ask your elected representatives whether your country keeps a verified register of the real owners of companies and trusts, and whether it is accessible to journalists and the public.
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OHCHR, UNDP, UNICEF and UNODC, published 2026
Latest joint UN review of SDG 16 data (September 2026): bribery of people (16.5.1, 139 countries) and businesses (16.5.2), illicit financial flows (16.4.1), budget reliability (16.6.1) and national human rights institutions (16.a.1).
United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Statistics Division, published 2026
Official UN progress summary for Goal 16: bribery prevalence by income and region, the limits of experience-based data, and the adoption and implementation of access-to-information laws.
Transparency International, published 2026
Results of the Corruption Perceptions Index 2025 (published 10 February 2026) for 182 countries and territories, with changes since 2012, links to civic space and data on journalists killed while covering corruption. Perception-based; licensed CC BY-ND 4.0, so only figures are cited here.
World Bank Enterprise Surveys, via World Bank Open Data, published 2026
Country-level data used for the map: share of firms asked for a bribe in six transactions with the state, latest survey per country (updated July 2026).
High Level Panel on International Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity (FACTI Panel), United Nations, published 2021
UN-convened panel's guidance on central, verified beneficial ownership registries, the weaknesses of current compliance and the role of sanctions and capacity support.
UN News, reporting on UNCTAD, published 2020
UNCTAD's estimate of illicit capital flight from Africa ($88.6 billion a year, 3.7% of GDP) and its link to lower public spending on health and education. The most recent continent-wide estimate found.