# Nitrous oxide emissions

Nitrous oxide (N2O) emitted in the year, in thousand tonnes of nitrous oxide, mostly from fertilised agricultural soils and manure, plus industry (nitric and adipic acid), fuel combustion and wastewater, as estimated by EDGAR. EDGAR estimates every country with the same IPCC methods and international activity statistics, so countries can be compared, but the values differ from the inventories countries report themselves. Emissions from land use, land use change and forestry and from large scale biomass burning (savannah and forest fires) are not included. The latest two years are fast track estimates from proxy statistics, replaced in later releases, and are marked provisional.

## Key facts

- Nitrous oxide emissions in the United States was 833.37 thousand tonnes of nitrous oxide in 2025, according to the European Commission, Joint Research Centre.
- China had the highest nitrous oxide emissions of 217 countries in 2025, at 2,435.74 thousand tonnes of nitrous oxide, and Tokelau the lowest, at 0 thousand tonnes of nitrous oxide. Source: the European Commission, Joint Research Centre.
- Published for 217 places, with figures from 1970 to 2025.
- Figures last updated on 2026-10-12.

- Indicator id: `n2o_emissions`
- Unit: thousand tonnes of nitrous oxide
- Note: Tonnes of the gas itself, not CO2 equivalent: EDGAR weights a tonne of nitrous oxide as 265 tonnes of CO2 over 100 years (IPCC AR5). EDGAR counts Andorra with Spain, Monaco with France, San Marino and the Holy See with Italy, and Liechtenstein with Switzerland. It reports Israel and Palestine, Sudan and South Sudan, and Serbia and Montenegro together, so those countries have no value here. Each release revises past years.
- Web page: https://invokely.ai/en/nitrous-oxide-emissions
- API: https://invokely.ai/api/v1/indicators/n2o_emissions

## Latest figures

| Place | Period | thousand tonnes of nitrous oxide | Source |
|---|---|---:|---|
| United States | 2025 | 833.37 | EDGAR (Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research) Community GHG Database, European Commission, Joint Research Centre. EDGAR N2O emissions by country, thousand tonnes (Gg) of nitrous oxide. https://jeodpp.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ftp/jrc-opendata/EDGAR/datasets/EDGAR_2026_GHG/. Retrieved 2026-10-12. © European Union, licensed under CC BY 4.0. |

## Rankings

- [Countries](https://invokely.ai/rankings/nitrous-oxide-emissions/countries.md) (217 places)
- [EU countries](https://invokely.ai/rankings/nitrous-oxide-emissions/eu-countries.md) (27 places)