A minority of countries score as very clean on CPI

Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index averages 13 expert and business surveys into a 0–100 score on public-sector corruption, where higher means cleaner. In the 2026 data, just 18% of countries score as very clean. The grid pairs that high-score band with regional shares of countries: Asia & Pacific (42.6%), Africa (23%), and the Americas (16.4%).

Corruption is hard to measure because it happens in secret and rarely leaves official records, so every source has blind spots. Experience surveys still show a stark range: in much of Europe, fewer than 10% of people who recently dealt with a public official report paying or being asked for a bribe, while in some countries more than half do.

Expert assessments tell a similar story: V-Dem's surveys of hundreds of experts find bribery and embezzlement relatively rare across government branches in many European countries, but widespread elsewhere, especially in Africa and Asia. Beyond individual bribes, corruption discourages people from following the rules and can increase inequality while slowing economic growth.

Transparency International CPI via Our World in Data.