The richest countries in the world

Which are the richest countries in the world by GDP per capita?

Monaco is the richest country in the world by GDP per person, at $288,000. Liechtenstein is second at $226,800 and Luxembourg third at $158,700. The average for the world, total GDP divided by total population, is $15,334.

The top three have 766,360 people between them. Monaco has about 38,340 residents and no income tax, and its figure is a World Bank estimate for 2024 because the IMF does not cover it. Liechtenstein and Luxembourg both have more jobs than working residents: more than half of the people who work in Liechtenstein commute in from Switzerland and Austria, and more than 200,000 commute into Luxembourg from France, Belgium and Germany. Their output is counted, but they are not counted as population, which lifts the per-person figure.

Ireland, fourth, is the clearest example of GDP that does not stay in the country. Large multinational companies book profits there for tax reasons, and the Irish statistics office publishes a "modified GNI" figure to correct for this; it is about 40 percent lower than GDP. Switzerland, Iceland, Singapore and Norway follow. The United States, ninth at $94,430, is the only large country in the top ten. Australia is 12th and Germany 18th.

12 of the 20 countries in this table have fewer than 10 million people. GDP per capita rewards small places with one strong industry: banking, oil, a port, or a low-tax regime that attracts company profits.

Which are the richest countries in the world by total GDP?

By the size of the whole economy the answer is United States, at $32.38 trillion. This is the list people usually mean by "biggest economies", and it favours countries with many people.

The United States and China are far ahead of everyone else, at $32.38 trillion and $20.85 trillion. Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and India fill places three to six, all between $4 and $5.5 trillion. China is second by total GDP and 74th by GDP per person; India is sixth and 151st. The full top 20 by total GDP is here.

Rich per person or rich in total? The top five both ways

Only United States is in the top ten on both lists. The rest of the per-person list is small countries, and the rest of the total list is large ones.

Why is GDP per capita not the same as being rich?

GDP per capita is the value of everything a country produces in a year, divided by its population. It is a measure of income, not of wealth, and it is an average, so it says nothing about how the income is shared. Three things push it up without making ordinary people richer.

• Commuters and company profits. Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Monaco and Ireland all count output produced by people or companies that are not part of the resident population.
• Oil and gas. Qatar ($68,140), the United Arab Emirates ($54,210), Kuwait, Brunei and Norway sell resources abroad. Norway puts most of the money into a sovereign wealth fund worth more than $1.5 trillion rather than spending it.
• High prices. A haircut in Zurich costs many times what it costs in Delhi, and GDP counts the price paid. Adjusting for local prices (purchasing power parity, or PPP) lowers Switzerland and Norway and raises India and China. On the IMF's PPP list, Singapore and Qatar move above Switzerland.

Wealth is a different measure again: what people own, minus what they owe. UBS's Global Wealth Report 2024 puts Switzerland first by average wealth per adult, with Luxembourg, Hong Kong and the United States close behind. The lists overlap, but they are not the same.

Which are the poorest countries in the world?

The lowest GDP per person in the world is Yemen's, at $384, about 750 times less than Monaco's. Afghanistan, South Sudan and Burundi are next. All four have had wars or violent political crises in the last decade, and the figures are IMF estimates with wide error margins. Nine of the ten poorest countries by this measure are in Africa or the Middle East.

How do we count?

"Country" means the 196 countries on Perspective Map: every UN member except Vatican City, plus Taiwan, Kosovo and Palestine. Territories are left out, which is why Macao ($76,446 per person in the IMF's figures), Hong Kong, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands do not appear. Five countries are not covered by the IMF and use other sources: Monaco (World Bank 2024), North Korea (Bank of Korea), Cuba (World Bank 2020), Syria (World Bank 2025) and Eritrea (a 2023 estimate).

GDP per capita and total GDP are the IMF World Economic Outlook (April 2026) projections for 2026, in current US dollars at market exchange rates. Population is the UN's 2025 estimate. The same figures draw the map, where you can switch between GDP per capita and total GDP with one click. More on the data.