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Top 10 Countries By GDP Per Capita, by Region

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A table listing the top 10 countries by GDP per capita (nominal) across the world and on each continent.

Top 10 Countries by GDP Per Capita in 2023

There are many ways to measure different economies against one another, but comparing countries by GDP per capita remains one of the most tried-and-true methods.

GDP per capita attempts to level the playing field by dividing a country’s economic output by its population, effectively giving the average GDP per person. A higher per capita GDP generally corresponds to higher income, consumption levels, and standards of living.

The simplicity of this metric also makes it useful for economists and policymakers to communicate levels of economic well-being to the public.

The above graphic from theWORLDMAPS ranks the top 10 countries by per capita GDP in different regions, using data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Top 10 Countries by GDP Per Capita in the World

Here are the top 10 countries with the highest nominal GDP per capita in the world in 2023, measured in U.S. dollars:

RankCountryGDP per CapitaRegion
1🇱🇺 Luxembourg$132,370Europe
2🇮🇪 Ireland$114,580Europe
3🇳🇴 Norway$101,100Europe
4🇨🇭 Switzerland$98,770Europe
5🇸🇬 Singapore$91,100Asia
6🇶🇦 Qatar$83,890Asia
7🇺🇸 U.S.$80,030Americas
8🇮🇸 Iceland$75,180Europe
9🇩🇰 Denmark$68,830Europe
10🇦🇺 Australia$64,960Oceania

Luxembourg, Ireland, and Norway lead the ranking with more than $100,000 in GDP per capita. Luxembourg is a key financial services center in Europe, Ireland is headquarters to many multinational corporations, and Norway is one of the largest energy exporters in the region, explaining their relative prosperity.

Wealthy countries with smaller populations tend to make up the world’s richest ranks. According to the IMF, Luxembourg only has slightly more than 600,000 people which would be a small city in more populous countries. In fact, in the top 10, only the U.S. and Australia have a population of more than 10 million.

Introducing Purchasing Power Parity

One of the major drawbacks of using GDP per capita is that it doesn’t account for the strength of the local currency versus its exchange rate, the latter of which is heavily influenced by investment flows and demand for the national currency.

Non-tradable goods in a country (haircuts, local transport, schools, etc.) do not get valued when using an exchange-rate conversion. It also doesn’t account for the price differences between countries—for example, fresh vegetables in India are far cheaper than in Canada.

To solve this problem, economists utilize purchasing power parity (PPP) indexes. A key element of these indexes is that they remove these price differences and convert into a common currency in order to show relative economic prosperity. Popular examples are The Economist’s Big Mac index and the Wall Street Journal’s Latte Index.

Nominal vs. PPP-adjusted GDP Per Capita

In the case of GDP, PPP measurements use an “international dollar” which can buy the same amount of goods in any given country as a U.S. dollar could buy in America.

Click to view this graphic in a higher-resolution.

A table listing the top 10 countries by PPP-adjusted GDP per capita across the world and on each continent.

Immediately, there are a few noticeable differences in the top 10 countries by GDP per capita when adjusted for PPP. For one, most countries’ values have increased from their nominal value (except for the U.S. since it is the benchmark).

RankCountryGDP per Capita (PPP) Region
1🇮🇪 Ireland$145,200Europe
2🇱🇺 Luxembourg$142,490Europe
3🇸🇬 Singapore$133,890Asia
4🇶🇦 Qatar$124,830Asia
5🇲🇴 Macao$89,560Asia
6🇦🇪 UAE$88,220Asia
7🇨🇭 Switzerland$87,960Europe
8🇳🇴 Norway$82,650Europe
9🇺🇸 U.S.$80,030Americas
10🇸🇲 San Marino$78,930Europe

Some countries have switched ranks in the top 10, such as Ireland and Luxembourg. Others have been replaced all together, with Iceland, Denmark, and Australia falling out of the top 10, replaced by Macao, the UAE, and San Marino.

We can also see how the different calculations of GDP per capita affect the rankings in other regions:

Rank (PPP)RegionCountryPPP (Intl $)Nominal ($)
1Americas🇺🇸 United States$80,030$80,030
2Americas🇬🇾 Guyana$60,650$20,540
3Americas🇨🇦 Canada$60,180$52,720
4Americas🇦🇼 Aruba$49,630$33,090
5Americas🇧🇸 The Bahamas$43,910$35,460
6Americas🇵🇷 Puerto Rico$43,840$38,570
7Americas🇵🇦 Panama$40,180$17,350
8Americas🇹🇹 Trinidad & Tobago$32,050$19,860
9Americas🇰🇳 Saint Kitts & Nevis$29,660$17,860
10Americas🇨🇱 Chile$29,610$17,830
1Africa🇸🇨 Seychelles$39,660$19,540
2Africa🇲🇺 Mauritius$29,160$11,550
3Africa🇱🇾 Libya$24,600$6,760
4Africa🇧🇼 Botswana$19,400$7,270
5Africa🇬🇦 Gabon$19,200$9,290
6Africa🇬🇶 Equatorial Guinea$18,510$9,780
7Africa🇪🇬 Egypt$16,980$3,640
8Africa🇿🇦 South Africa$16,090$6,490
9Africa🇩🇿 Algeria$13,510$4,480
10Africa🇹🇳 Tunisia$13,270$4,070
1Asia🇸🇬 Singapore$133,890$91,100
2Asia🇶🇦 Qatar$124,830$83,890
3Asia🇲🇴 Macao SAR$89,560$50,570
4Asia🇦🇪 United Arab Emirates$88,220$49,450
5Asia🇧🇳 Brunei Darussalam$75,580$35,100
6Asia🇭🇰 Hong Kong SAR$74,600$52,430
7Asia🇹🇼 Taiwan$73,340$33,910
8Asia🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia$64,840$29,920
9Asia🇧🇭 Bahrain$60,600$28,390
10Asia🇰🇷 South Korea$56,710$33,390
1Europe🇮🇪 Ireland$145,200$114,580
2Europe🇱🇺 Luxembourg$142,490$132,370
3Europe🇨🇭 Switzerland$87,960$98,770
4Europe🇳🇴 Norway$82,650$101,100
5Europe🇸🇲 San Marino$78,930$52,950
6Europe🇩🇰 Denmark$73,390$68,830
7Europe🇳🇱 Netherlands$72,970$61,100
8Europe🇮🇸 Iceland$69,780$75,180
9Europe🇦🇹 Austria$69,500$56,800
10Europe🇦🇩 Andorra$69,000$44,390
1Oceania🇦🇺 Australia$65,370$64,960
2Oceania🇳🇿 New Zealand$54,050$48,830
3Oceania🇵🇼 Palau$16,390$14,800
4Oceania🇫🇯 Fiji$15,730$5,890
5Oceania🇳🇷 Nauru$11,340$11,830
6Oceania🇹🇴 Tonga$7,120$5,420
7Oceania🇼🇸 Samoa$6,320$4,440
8Oceania🇹🇻 Tuvalu$5,800$6,010
9Oceania🇲🇭 Marshall Islands$4,670$5,160
10Oceania🇵🇬 Papua New Guinea$4,520$3,520

The Americas and Europe

The U.S. leads the Americas in both nominal and PPP-adjusted per capita GDP. However, Canada drops to 3rd place under the new metric, overtaken by Guyana.

In Europe, the usual suspects in the world’s top 10 populate most of the region’s ranks. However, Andorra slides in at 10th in Europe’s richest countries by GDP per capita (PPP). Andorra in particular benefits from its status as a free economic zone—very low or no taxes—and being a tourism hotspot with the sector contributing 80% to its economy.

Asia

Singapore, Qatar, Macao, the UAE, and Hong Kong claim top spots as Asia’s richest countries on both lists. Qatar and the UAE benefit from oil being a key export of the region, while Singapore and are top financial centers of Asia. Macao—where gambling is legal—is a massive tourism draw.

On the other hand, Israel and Japan drop out of the richest countries in Asia when using PPP calculations, with countries like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain edging them out.

Africa and Oceania

The island nations of Seychelles and Mauritius lead the ranks of countries by GDP per capita in both nominal and PPP categories on the African continent, also thanks to their booming tourism industries.

Traditional African economic heavyweight South Africa also features in this list of Africa’s richest. But Egypt, the region’s third largest economy, only makes the top 10 countries by GDP when adjusted for PPP, otherwise weighed down by its large population.

And in Oceania, adjusting GDP for purchasing power doesn’t have much effect on the sizable gap between Australia and New Zealand and their smaller island neighbors. But some local economies are noticeably stronger when adjusting for PPP, especially Fiji‘s, which has a GDP per capita (PPP) three times bigger than its nominal value.

The Drawbacks of GDP Per Capita

GDP per capita is a useful measure, but it also comes with its own set of caveats.

For one, it is a measurement of economic output per person, not individual income or household savings. That gives it clear limitations in certain cases, such as in Ireland, where the presence of multinational corporations obfuscates the general output per person.

Secondly, countries with smaller populations do better in the rankings. Most of the world’s biggest economies (China, India, UK, France) do not find themselves in the top 10 ranks.

Finally, other metrics for a good standard of living, some of them intangible in economic terms—human rights, freedom of expression—are not accounted for at all.

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GDP

Charted: Tax Revenue vs. GDP for Major Countries

Measuring the ratio of tax revenue to economic size reveals the government’s ability to spend on public services.

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A cropped chart ranking the world’s major economies (G20 members) by their tax-to-GDP ratios, as sourced from OECD Revenue Statistics 2023.

Charted: Tax Revenue vs. GDP for Major Countries

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

In this visualization, we rank the world’s major economies by their tax-to-GDP ratios, as sourced from OECD Revenue Statistics 2023.

The tax-to-GDP ratio measures a country’s tax revenue relative to the size of its economy.

Why does it matter?

A higher ratio may indicate higher taxes and more government revenue coming in compared to economic output. Meanwhile, a lower level reflects a lighter tax burden relative to the size of the economy.

EU Countries Understand Tax Collection

European countries have some of the highest tax revenues, relative to their economies, in the world.

Amongst the G20 economies, the top three by tax-to-GDP ratio all belong to the European Union, and the fourth (the UK) only left the collective in 2020.

RankG20 MemberRegionTax-to-GDP Ratio
1🇫🇷 FranceEurope46%
2🇮🇹 ItalyEurope43%
3🇩🇪 GermanyEurope39%
4🇬🇧 UKEurope34%
5🇨🇦 CanadaAmericas33%
6🇧🇷 BrazilAmericas33%
7🇯🇵 JapanAsia33%
8🇰🇷 South KoreaAsia32%
9🇦🇷 ArgentinaAmericas30%
10🇦🇺 AustraliaOceania30%
11🇺🇸 U.S.Americas28%
12🇿🇦 South AfricaAfrica27%
13🇷🇺 RussiaEurope23%
14🇹🇷 TürkiyeEurope21%
15🇨🇳 ChinaAsia20%
16🇲🇽 MexicoAmericas17%
17🇮🇳 IndiaAsia12%
18🇮🇩 IndonesiaAsia12%
19🇸🇦 Saudi ArabiaAsia8%
N/A🌐 WorldWorld15%

Note: Figures rounded. Data as of 2022, sourced from OECD Revenue Statistics 2023. The EU is also a G20 member but is not included for this visualization.

However, regional trends don’t hold up past that. On the other hand, economic trends are more noticeable. For example, eight of the top 10 in the ranking are high income countries per World Bank classifications.

And in contrast, the only two lower-middle income countries in the G20, India and Indonesia, are in the bottom three.

The World Bank says a 15% ratio is critical for economic growth and poverty reduction. A 10-year study estimated that the per capita GDP for countries that hit the 15% threshold would be 7.5% larger than if they had not.

China is one of the best examples for this phenomenon where tax revenues rose before the country’s significant per capita GDP growth in the 2000s.

Of course, there are exceptions to this. Saudi Arabia, and other wealthy oil exporters (UAE, Kuwait, Brunei) have lower ratios simply because they do not need to fund government expenditure through taxation.

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