In 2024, 3.4 billion people did not have a private toilet whose waste is safely managed, 354 million had no toilet at all, and 1.7 billion had no place at home to wash their hands with soap and water.
Updated October 13, 2026. Written from the sources listed below, not independently peer-reviewed.
Out of every 100 people on Earth, how many use a toilet that is not shared with other households and whose waste is safely managed?
3.4 billion
People without safely managed sanitation
Down from 3.9 billion in 2015. Global coverage rose from 48% in 2015 to 58% in 2024.
Data year 2024. Source: WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme, 2025
354 million
People practising open defecation
429 million fewer than in 2015. In urban areas the rate has fallen below 1%.
Data year 2024. Source: WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme, 2025
1.7 billion
People without basic hygiene at home
Including 611 million with no handwashing facility at all. Basic hygiene coverage rose from 66% in 2015 to 80% in 2024.
Data year 2024. Source: WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme, 2025
Only the two values reported in the JMP 2025 report are shown; years in between are not plotted. Over the same period coverage rose from 36% to 49% in rural areas and from 59% to 66% in urban areas.
SDG target 6.2 calls for adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all and an end to open defecation by 2030, with special attention to women, girls and people in vulnerable situations. In 2024 no SDG region was on track for universal safely managed sanitation, and the global rate of progress would have to increase sixfold to get there; for basic hygiene it would have to double. Nine countries had universal safely managed sanitation, and on current trends 18 will have reached it by 2030.
Open defecation rates in low-income countries are four times the global average, and low-income countries are the only income group not on track to end open defecation by 2030.
Source: WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme, 2025Survey data on women and girls aged 15 to 49 in 70 countries show that most use menstrual materials, but far fewer have enough to change as often as they want, and girls aged 15 to 19 are less likely than adult women to take part in work, school and social activities during menstruation.
Source: WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme, 2025National averages hide groups that are left out. In Papua New Guinea, households that include a person with a disability were 9 percentage points more likely to practise open defecation, and in Paraguay in 2022, 10% of indigenous people practised open defecation compared with 1% of the general population.
Source: WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme, 2025Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region where fewer than half of schools (43%) had basic sanitation in 2025, and the number of school-age children there without it rose from 213 million to 264 million between 2015 and 2025.
Source: UNICEF and WHO, 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…
Share of people who do not use a private improved toilet whose waste is safely disposed of on site or removed and treated (100 minus the JMP safely managed rate); latest year available per country, mostly 2024, so years differ. Estimates exist for about 145 countries (not, for example, Indonesia, Pakistan, Iran, Angola, Cameroon, Sudan or Zambia), and countries where sewage is collected but not treated can show high values even when nearly everyone has a toilet.
Source: WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP), 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?
ModerateBetween 2015 and 2024, 1.2 billion people gained safely managed sanitation, coverage rose from 48% to 58%, and the number of people practising open defecation fell by 429 million. Still, 3.4 billion people lacked safely managed sanitation and 1.7 billion lacked basic hygiene at home in 2024.
How mature and validated are the available solutions?
ModerateSewers with treatment, on-site systems that are emptied safely and handwashing with soap are long established, and pooled studies show that sanitation interventions cut diarrhoea risk in children by 24% and handwashing promotion by 30%. Much less proven are affordable ways to manage waste in crowded informal settlements and to keep communities using toilets after programmes end.
How widely are effective solutions actually used?
Moderate58% of people use safely managed sanitation and 80% have basic hygiene at home, but in fragile contexts safely managed sanitation coverage is 33 percentage points lower than elsewhere, and open defecation in low-income countries is four times the global rate.
Surveys and censuses show reliably which toilets people use, and 145 countries covering 86% of the world's population had safely managed sanitation estimates in 2024. What happens to the waste is far less measured: estimates for on-site waste that is emptied and treated elsewhere existed for only eight countries, and hygiene estimates covered 91 countries.
Coverage is rising and open defecation is falling, but progress on safely managed sanitation would have to be six times faster to meet the 2030 target. The number of people without it has fallen only marginally in urban areas and has risen in low-income countries, where the number without basic hygiene also grew, from 427 million to 502 million.
A toilet protects health only if human waste is kept away from people at every step: in the toilet itself and when it is emptied, transported, treated or disposed of. In 2024, 3.4 billion people did not have such a safely managed service. Of these, 1.9 billion had a private improved toilet whose waste was not safely managed, 560 million shared a toilet with other households, 555 million used unimproved latrines, and 354 million had no toilet at all and practised open defecation. Hygiene is a separate gap: 1.7 billion people had no handwashing facility with soap and water at home. Even where homes are connected to sewers or septic tanks, much of the waste escapes. Only 56% of household wastewater worldwide was safely treated in 2024, and badly built or managed pits and septic tanks can pollute open drains and groundwater.
WHO attributes about 564,000 deaths in 2019, largely from diarrhoeal disease, to unsafe sanitation, and poor sanitation also spreads intestinal worms, schistosomiasis and trachoma and makes stunting worse. The burden falls hardest on low-income and fragile countries, rural areas and crowded informal settlements. Women and girls are affected in particular ways: without a safe, private toilet they face risks to their safety and dignity, and many do not have enough materials to manage menstruation as they would like. Schools are part of the gap: in 2025, 460 million school-age children had no basic sanitation service at their school, and 244 million of them attended a school with no sanitation service at all.
The WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) ranks the services households use on a ladder. A household counts as having safely managed sanitation only when the first three conditions are all met; hygiene is measured on its own ladder:
Improved facility
The toilet is designed to keep excreta away from human contact: a flush or pour-flush toilet connected to a sewer, septic tank or pit, a pit latrine with a slab, or a composting toilet. Pit latrines without a slab, hanging latrines and bucket latrines count as unimproved, and disposing of faeces in fields, bushes, open water or other open spaces counts as open defecation.
Not shared
The facility is used by one household only. An improved toilet shared by two or more households counts as a limited service.
Waste safely managed
Excreta are safely disposed of on site, or stored and later emptied and treated elsewhere, or carried away by sewer and treated. An improved, unshared toilet whose waste is not handled in one of these ways counts as a basic service.
Basic hygiene
The household has a handwashing facility with soap and water at home. A facility without soap or water counts as a limited service. Surveys record this by having enumerators look for water and soap, which is a more reliable guide to handwashing behaviour than asking people.
What works
Piped sewerage carries waste away from homes and, when the wastewater is treated, offers the most complete protection. In a meta-analysis of studies in low- and middle-income countries, sanitation interventions overall reduced the risk of diarrhoea in children by 24%, and sewer connections reduced it by 47%.
Limits
The sewer estimate rests on only five studies. Sewers are expensive to build and run, need a reliable water supply, and protect public health only if the treatment plants at the end of the pipe work.
What works
Septic tanks and pit latrines serve most people who are not connected to sewers. When the sludge is regularly emptied, transported and treated (faecal sludge management), they can provide a safely managed service without a sewer network.
Limits
The chain often breaks after the toilet. In 2024, about 27% of household wastewater went into septic tanks, but only half of that was delivered to treatment and 46% was safely treated, mainly because tanks were poorly contained or managed.
What works
Community-led total sanitation (CLTS) encourages whole communities, mostly in rural areas, to stop open defecation and to build and use their own toilets. It is widely used, and in a systematic review of 200 studies, the 14 quantitative evaluations included reported decreases in open defecation.
Limits
The same review judged the evidence base weak: rigorous evaluations did not confirm the widespread claims of villages becoming open-defecation-free, over a quarter of the literature overstated its conclusions, and there was little evidence of lasting behaviour change.
What works
A handwashing place with water and soap at home, combined with promotion of handwashing at key times, is inexpensive. In the same meta-analysis, promoting handwashing with soap reduced the risk of diarrhoea in children by 30%.
Limits
Handwashing needs a permanent facility with water and soap close to the toilet and kitchen, which many households lack, and promotion alone cannot make up for missing water or soap.
What works
School toilets count as basic only when they are improved, usable and separate for girls and boys. Separate facilities particularly help girls attend school, and global basic sanitation coverage in schools rose from 67% in 2015 to 77% in 2025.
Limits
Progress is too slow: on current trends coverage would reach only 81% by 2030. Toilets also need budgets for cleaning, repairs and supplies to stay usable.
Promising, but not proven at scale. The stage shows how far each approach has come; it is not a recommendation.
In some dense informal settlements, households use sealed toilets whose containers are collected regularly and taken for treatment, avoiding the need for sewers or pit emptying. Services remain small, many city authorities are unfamiliar with the approach, and in a World Bank case study in Lima user fees covered only a fraction of the costs.
Prefabricated units that collect and treat excreta where they are produced, without a sewer connection, are being developed for places where sewers are impractical. An international standard (ISO 30500) sets safety and performance requirements for their design and testing, but it does not cover operation or maintenance, and cost and reliability in everyday use remain uncertain.
Treated wastewater and faecal sludge can supply irrigation water, plant nutrients and energy. WHO notes that such reuse is already widespread but often happens without adequate treatment, controls on use or regulatory oversight, so products must be shown to be safe before they are used.
Household surveys now ask about menstrual materials, privacy and participation in daily activities, allowing the JMP to report menstrual health estimates for 70 countries, and new survey questions on emptying and disposal of waste from on-site toilets aim to close the largest data gap. Many countries still have no such data.
Implementation gap
A toilet does not make sanitation safe if its contents are dumped. In 2024, 17% of household wastewater was not collected at all, and only 46% of the wastewater held in septic tanks was safely treated.
Implementation gap
To reach universal basic sanitation and basic hygiene by 2030, low-income countries would need to increase their rate of progress 18-fold, and people in least developed countries are nearly twice as likely as others to lack safely managed sanitation.
Technology gap
In dense, low-income and informal urban areas, sewers are unreliable or missing, there is little space for toilets, and services to remove faecal sludge are often unavailable or unaffordable. Badly designed or managed pits and septic tanks then contaminate open drains and groundwater.
Coordination gap
Wastewater and sludge are widely reused, for example to irrigate crops, but often without adequate treatment, controls on use or regulatory oversight. WHO estimates that at least 10% of the world's population may eat food irrigated with wastewater.
Knowledge gap
Community-led total sanitation is widely used to end open defecation, but a systematic review found little evidence that it changes behaviour for good and no clear evidence on whether incentives or subsidies help.
Knowledge gap
In 2024, estimates of on-site waste that is emptied and treated elsewhere were available for only eight countries, seven of them high-income, so the safety of the sanitation used by billions of people is largely unmeasured.
Unresolved questions, not vetted breakthroughs. Answering any of them would change what is possible.
What type of service, and what share of a community using it, is needed before sanitation reliably reduces diarrhoea, worm infections and stunting, given that sewer connections appear to protect more than basic latrines?
Which combinations of regulation, financing and technology make regular, safe emptying and treatment of pit and septic tank waste affordable for low-income urban households, and how can it be monitored cheaply?
What keeps households using toilets and washing hands with soap for years after a programme ends, and when do subsidies or incentives help or hinder that?
How should toilets, handwashing places and menstrual health support be designed and measured so that they meet the needs of girls, people with disabilities and people in fragile or flood-prone settings?
When you give to sanitation projects, ask what happens to the waste after a toilet is built: who empties it, where it is treated, and whether the toilets are still in use several years later.
Organisations that improve toilets, handwashing and menstrual health in schools can report how many facilities remain clean and usable over time. Prefer those that publish such data.
Wet wipes, fats, oils and medicines flushed down toilets and sinks can block sewers and burden treatment plants. Put them in the bin or take them to collection points instead.
Find out whether your government's development aid supports sanitation and hygiene in low-income and fragile countries, where the gaps are largest, and raise it with your elected representatives.
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WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme, published 2025
Primary global report on household WASH, published 26 August 2025. Source of the 2024 sanitation figures (58% safely managed, 3.4 billion without, 354 million practising open defecation), the 2015 baselines, hygiene figures (80% basic, 1.7 billion without, 611 million with no facility), menstrual health estimates for 70 countries, inequality findings, data coverage and the acceleration needed to meet the 2030 targets.
UNICEF and WHO (Joint Monitoring Programme), published 2026
Global estimates for WASH in schools in 2025: 77% basic sanitation coverage, 460 million school-age children without basic sanitation at school (244 million with no service), the rise in sub-Saharan Africa and the projection to 2030.
World Health Organization, published 2024
WHO overview of sanitation and health (22 March 2024): deaths attributed to unsafe sanitation, diseases and stunting linked to poor sanitation, effects on women and girls and on school attendance, problems in dense informal areas, unsafe reuse of wastewater and sludge, and links to antimicrobial resistance and climate change. Its 2022 coverage figures are superseded by the JMP 2025 report and are not used here.
The Lancet 400(10345):48–59 (Wolf, Hubbard, Brauer et al.), published 2022
Meta-analysis of 124 intervention studies in children in low- and middle-income countries: sanitation interventions reduced diarrhoea risk by 24%, sewer connections by 47% (five studies) and handwashing promotion by 30%.
United Nations Statistics Division, published 2026
Official UN summary of indicator 6.3.1 for 2024: 56% of household wastewater safely treated, with breakdowns for sewers, septic tanks and uncollected flows.
Environmental Health Perspectives 126(2):026001 (Venkataramanan, Crocker, Karon, Bartram), published 2018
Systematic review of 200 studies on community-led total sanitation: quantitative evaluations found less open defecation but did not confirm claims of open-defecation-free villages, the evidence base was judged weak, and there was little evidence of sustained behaviour change. The most recent systematic review specific to CLTS that could be found.