Data / Rankings / Government spending on education, share of GDP / Countries

Countries by government spending on education, share of GDP

Kiribati had the highest government spending on education, share of GDP of 165 countries in 2018, at 12.9% of GDP. Nigeria had the lowest, at 0.4% of GDP. The median was 4.2% of GDP. Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics.

Full ranking

Other periods

• 2022
• 2021
• 2020
• 2019
• 2018
• 2017
• 2016
• 2015
• 2014
• 2013

About this ranking

General government expenditure on education at all levels (current, capital and transfers), as a percentage of GDP. Includes spending funded by international transfers to government. UNESCO Institute for Statistics.

Government spending only: fees and other money paid by households and private bodies are left out, so countries where families pay a large share show lower values. For some countries UIS takes the figure from government budget documents, so a recent year can be revised when final accounts come in. Countries only; UIS publishes no World figure.

Every value in the ranking comes from the same publisher and the same period, so the countries are compared on one definition. 38 countries with data in other periods have no value for 2018 and are left out rather than filled from another source. Equal values share a rank.

How to cite

Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS). Government expenditure on education, total, % of GDP (SE.XPD.TOTL.GD.ZS). Retrieved through World Bank World Development Indicators (data.worldbank.org). https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.XPD.TOTL.GD.ZS. Retrieved 2026-10-12. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. UIS does not endorse Invokely or this use of the data.

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