Top 100 Countries by Corruption Perceptions Index, 2025

by StatRanker March 31, 2026 40 56 min read

Governance · Institutions · Investment climate

Corruption Perceptions Index 2025: where the cleanest public sectors still stand apart

The Corruption Perceptions Index is the most widely used global ranking of perceived public-sector corruption. A higher score means cleaner institutions, stronger enforcement and fewer signals that political access can buy outcomes. For the 2025 edition, Transparency International scored 182 countries and territories on a 0–100 scale, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean.

This page focuses on the Top 100 countries by CPI score in 2025. In practice, readers usually want three things from this ranking: who leads, where the score gaps start to widen, and how far large economies are from the highest-scoring group.

Year: 2025 Coverage: 182 countries and territories Scale: 0–100 Global average: 42

Top 10 countries by Corruption Perceptions Index, 2025

The top of the table is concentrated in Northern and Western Europe, with a smaller Asia-Pacific group also scoring very highly. What separates these countries is not only lower bribery risk in the public sector, but also stronger oversight, more predictable enforcement, and higher administrative capacity.

#1 Denmark Score: 89

Denmark remains the benchmark. Its score reflects deep institutional trust, strong public administration and comparatively low tolerance for opaque decision-making in government.

#2 Finland Score: 88

Finland stays near the ceiling of the index. Its position shows how durable integrity systems can be when rule of law, media freedom and administrative professionalism reinforce one another.

#3 Singapore Score: 84

Singapore is the highest-scoring Asian economy. It combines strong enforcement, efficient state capacity and a business environment where public-sector integrity remains central to competitiveness.

#4 New Zealand Score: 81

New Zealand continues to score at a very high level. Its position shows how durable clean-government outcomes can be when institutional trust and administrative quality remain strong.

#4 Norway Score: 81

Norway shows how a resource-rich country can still remain near the top when transparency, public scrutiny and strong procurement and audit systems are part of the institutional core.

#6 Sweden Score: 80

Sweden remains in the elite group. Its score also shows that high-performing democracies still need constant enforcement and political-integrity safeguards to stay there.

#6 Switzerland Score: 80

Switzerland’s position reflects stable institutions and administrative quality, although the CPI does not capture every integrity risk tied to global finance and cross-border money flows.

#8 Luxembourg Score: 78

Luxembourg stays in the upper echelon. Its result reflects strong public-sector integrity, even though separate debates about international finance and transparency continue outside the CPI framework.

#8 Netherlands Score: 78

The Netherlands remains comfortably inside the global top 10. Its score reflects institutional depth rather than one-off anti-corruption campaigns.

#10 Germany Score: 77

Germany rounds out the top 10. This matters because it shows that large and complex economies can still achieve very high integrity scores, not only smaller states with simpler administrative structures.

Table 1. Top 10 countries by CPI score

Rank	Country	Score	Region
1	Denmark	89	Europe
2	Finland	88	Europe
3	Singapore	84	Asia-Pacific
4	New Zealand	81	Asia-Pacific
4	Norway	81	Europe
6	Sweden	80	Europe
6	Switzerland	80	Europe
8	Luxembourg	78	Europe
8	Netherlands	78	Europe
10	Germany	77	Europe

Rank numbers follow the official tied-score method. Countries with the same score share the sam

Chart 1. Top 20 CPI scores in 2025

Top 20 by score: Denmark 89, Finland 88, Singapore 84, New Zealand 81, Norway 81, Sweden 80, Switzerland 80, Luxembourg 78, Netherlands 78, Germany 77, Iceland 77, Australia 76, Estonia 76, Hong Kong 76, Ireland 76, Canada 75, Uruguay 73, Bhutan 71, Japan 71, United Kingdom 70.

The shape matters more than the exact order inside ties. There is a clear premium for countries that combine clean procurement, credible courts, administrative professionalism and sustained political accountability.

Methodology

This page uses the official Corruption Perceptions Index 2025 from Transparency International. CPI is not a direct count of bribes or court convictions. It is a composite perception-based measure built from multiple expert and business surveys, then standardised to a 0–100 scale and aggregated into a country score. Countries are included only when there are enough underlying sources to meet Transparency International’s methodology threshold.

For this ranking page, the working unit is the official 2025 CPI score. The article sorts countries from highest to lowest score, preserves tied ranks, and uses broad regional labels only for on-page filtering and interpretation. No JS is used to generate the rows themselves; the table remains visible in raw HTML. The chart is a visual layer only.

The main limitation is the one inherent to CPI itself: it measures perceived public-sector corruption, not every form of private misconduct, not every informal payment, and not every integrity risk tied to offshore finance, lobbying or state capture. It is best read as a high-quality governance signal, not as a complete moral scorecard for a country.

Key insights

The first clear pattern is concentration at the top. The highest scores still belong mainly to mature democracies and highly institutionalised administrations. Europe remains overrepresented, while Asia-Pacific contributes a smaller but still important group led by Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and Hong Kong.

The second pattern is how quickly the threshold falls once the table moves below the low 70s. The raw point differences are not huge, but they often correspond to meaningful gaps in procurement quality, judicial independence, political-finance controls, and enforcement credibility.

The third point is that income does not guarantee a top score. Several wealthy states remain below the cleanest tier, while some smaller countries do better because institutional rules are applied more consistently. CPI therefore tracks governance quality more closely than headline GDP.

What this means for the reader

For investors, a stronger CPI score usually signals lower friction in permits, procurement, and other state-facing operations. It does not remove political risk, but it often reduces the everyday uncertainty that delays projects and raises compliance costs.

For migrants, international students, and remote professionals, CPI can also serve as a practical proxy for how predictable public systems may feel in daily life: licensing, municipal paperwork, dispute resolution, tax administration, and interaction with regulators.

For broader country comparison, CPI works best alongside rule-of-law, democracy, press-freedom, and human-development indicators. It adds institutional context rather than replacing those measures.

FAQ

Why is Denmark still number one?

Because the countries at the top usually combine strong courts, transparent public administration, lower tolerance for conflicts of interest, and a political culture in which integrity rules are actually enforced.

Does a higher CPI score mean there is no corruption?

No. It means the public sector is perceived as cleaner. Even top-scoring countries can still face major integrity issues, especially around cross-border finance, lobbying, campaign money or foreign proceeds of corruption.

Is CPI about real corruption or only opinions?

CPI is a perception-based composite built from expert and business assessments. That is a limitation, but it is also why the index remains useful where directly comparable corruption counts do not exist.

Why are rich countries not always at the top?

Because wealth alone does not guarantee clean institutions. Administrative quality, judicial independence, public scrutiny and enforcement discipline matter more than headline income.

What score is considered good?

There is no formal cutoff, but a score above 70 usually indicates a stronger integrity environment. Around 50 suggests mixed performance. Below 40 often points to deeper institutional weaknesses and higher public-sector corruption risk.

Can I use CPI to judge investment risk?

Yes, but not alone. It is useful as a first-pass governance filter. For real decisions, pair it with rule of law, political stability, enforcement quality, sanctions exposure and sector-specific regulatory risk.

Why are some countries missing from older editions or regional comparisons?

Transparency International only includes countries that meet the minimum source threshold. If there are not enough qualifying sources, a country cannot be scored in that edition.

Full Top 100 CPI table

The full table below keeps all 100 rows directly in the HTML. With JavaScript enabled, readers can search by country, sort by score or name, filter by broad region and switch between Top 10, Top 20 and all 100 visible rows. Without JavaScript, the full table still remains readable.

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Region View

Default interactive view: Top 20. Official rank numbers are preserved in the first column, including ties.

Rank	Country	Score	Region
1	Denmark	89	Europe
2	Finland	88	Europe
3	Singapore	84	Asia-Pacific
4	New Zealand	81	Asia-Pacific
4	Norway	81	Europe
6	Sweden	80	Europe
6	Switzerland	80	Europe
8	Luxembourg	78	Europe
8	Netherlands	78	Europe
10	Germany	77	Europe
10	Iceland	77	Europe
12	Australia	76	Asia-Pacific
12	Estonia	76	Europe
12	Hong Kong	76	Asia-Pacific
12	Ireland	76	Europe
16	Canada	75	Americas
17	Uruguay	73	Americas
18	Bhutan	71	Asia-Pacific
18	Japan	71	Asia-Pacific
20	United Kingdom	70	Europe
21	Austria	69	Europe
21	Belgium	69	Europe
21	United Arab Emirates	69	MENA
24	Barbados	68	Americas
24	Seychelles	68	Africa
24	Taiwan	68	Asia-Pacific
27	France	66	Europe
28	Lithuania	65	Europe
29	Bahamas	64	Americas
29	United States	64	Americas
31	Brunei Darussalam	63	Asia-Pacific
31	Chile	63	Americas
31	South Korea	63	Asia-Pacific
31	Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	63	Americas
35	Cabo Verde	62	Africa
35	Israel	62	MENA
37	Dominica	60	Americas
37	Latvia	60	Europe
39	Czechia	59	Europe
39	Saint Lucia	59	Americas
41	Botswana	58	Africa
41	Qatar	58	MENA
41	Rwanda	58	Africa
41	Slovenia	58	Europe
45	Saudi Arabia	57	MENA
46	Costa Rica	56	Americas
46	Grenada	56	Americas
46	Portugal	56	Europe
49	Cyprus	55	Europe
49	Fiji	55	Asia-Pacific
49	Spain	55	Europe
52	Italy	53	Europe
52	Poland	53	Europe
54	Malaysia	52	Asia-Pacific
54	Oman	52	MENA
56	Bahrain	50	MENA
56	Georgia	50	Europe
56	Greece	50	Europe
56	Jordan	50	MENA
60	Malta	49	Europe
61	Mauritius	48	Africa
61	Slovakia	48	Europe
63	Croatia	47	Europe
63	Vanuatu	47	Asia-Pacific
65	Armenia	46	Europe
65	Kuwait	46	MENA
65	Montenegro	46	Europe
65	Namibia	46	Africa
65	Senegal	46	Africa
70	Benin	45	Africa
70	Romania	45	Europe
70	São Tomé and Príncipe	45	Africa
73	Jamaica	44	Americas
73	Solomon Islands	44	Asia-Pacific
73	Timor-Leste	44	Asia-Pacific
76	China	43	Asia-Pacific
76	Côte d’Ivoire	43	Africa
76	Ghana	43	Africa
76	Kosovo	43	Europe
80	Moldova	42	Europe
81	South Africa	41	Africa
81	Trinidad and Tobago	41	Americas
81	Vietnam	41	Asia-Pacific
84	Bulgaria	40	Europe
84	Burkina Faso	40	Africa
84	Cuba	40	Americas
84	Guyana	40	Americas
84	Hungary	40	Europe
84	North Macedonia	40	Europe
84	Tanzania	40	Africa
91	Albania	39	Europe
91	India	39	Asia-Pacific
91	Maldives	39	Asia-Pacific
91	Morocco	39	MENA
91	Tunisia	39	MENA
96	Ethiopia	38	Africa
96	Kazakhstan	38	Asia-Pacific
96	Suriname	38	Americas
99	Colombia	37	Americas
99	Dominican Republic	37	Americas

Source: Transparency International, CPI 2025 map and index. Updated for publication using the official 2025 release.

Next: score curve → Back to overview ↑

Figure 2. How quickly the score falls across the Top 100

This chart is useful because it shows the curve, not just the leaders. The drop from the top tier into the 70s is noticeable, but the bigger structural story is what happens below the mid-table: many countries cluster in the 50s, 40s and high 30s, which means small point differences can still separate very different institutional realities.

The Top 100 begins at 89 and the cutoff for this page is 37. The steepest visible premium is near the top, while the middle of the table compresses into narrower score bands, especially between the high 50s and high 30s.

Back to table ↑ Next: interpretation →

How to read the 2025 CPI hierarchy

The 2025 table shows a consistent institutional pattern. Countries at the top are not simply “less corrupt” in a broad moral sense. They usually have stronger audit capacity, more stable procurement rules, more credible investigative frameworks, lower tolerance for political interference in state institutions, and more room for civic scrutiny.

The opposite pattern also matters. Once scores fall into the 30s and below, the issue is usually not one scandal but a wider institutional problem: weaker checks and balances, selective enforcement, politicised administration, reduced media freedom, or a state apparatus that does not consistently constrain insiders. That is why CPI is most useful alongside democracy, rule-of-law, and investment-climate measures.

One practical takeaway is that the middle of the table is crowded. Many countries are separated by only a few points. That does not make them equivalent: even small score changes can reflect meaningful differences in trust, enforcement credibility, and the practical reliability of public institutions.

Policy takeaways

For governments near the top, the main task is to protect enforcement quality and institutional independence from gradual political erosion.
For middle-ranking states, progress usually depends less on headline campaigns and more on procurement transparency, judicial credibility, budget oversight, and political-finance controls.
For investors and firms, CPI works best as a first-screen governance metric before deeper legal and regulatory due diligence.
For citizens, journalists, and civil-society groups, the index is a practical benchmarking tool for testing whether anti-corruption promises are visible in long-run institutional perception.
For cross-country analysis, CPI should be read together with rule of law, media freedom, democracy quality, state capacity, and income levels rather than in isolation.