Countries by Coal rents (% of GDP)
Cabo Verde ranked 1st in coal rents as a percentage of GDP in 2021, with a value of 17.18%, a figure that dwarfs every major coal-producing nation in the dataset. At the other end, 130 countries recorded exactly 0.00%, reflecting no measurable coal rent relative to their economies. The gap between first and second place alone — 17.18% versus Mongolia's 4.89% — is wider than the entire range from rank 2 to rank 199.
Ranking 2021
Values shown in %.
Analysis
Coal rents measure the share of a country's GDP derived from coal extraction profits. As defined by the World Bank World Development Indicators (indicator NY.GDP.COAL.RT.ZS), coal rents are the difference between the value of both hard and soft coal production at world prices and their total costs of production. The result is expressed as a percentage of GDP. This metric captures the economic rent attributable to coal resources, not total coal output or consumption. Data cover 199 countries for the reference year 2021, with 94.5% of countries reporting values from that exact year and 97.5% reporting data from within the last seven years. All 199 datapoints are classified as official-quality. The dataset contains 22 extreme outliers at the 3-sigma threshold, reflecting the highly skewed distribution of coal rents globally.
Cabo Verde ranks 1st with 17.18% of GDP, a value that stands as a statistical outlier far beyond the next-ranked country. Mongolia ranks 2nd at 4.89%, followed by Mozambique at 3.78% (rank 3) and South Africa at 2.44% (rank 4). India (rank 5, 1.28%) and Indonesia (rank 6, 1.22%) are the largest economies by population in the top ten. Kazakhstan (rank 7, 0.85%) and Australia (rank 8, 0.79%) follow. These top-ranked countries all report coal production that generates meaningful rent relative to their total economic output as measured by GDP.
The middle of the ranking includes a broad set of countries with coal rents below 0.5% of GDP. Ukraine ranks 17th at 0.34%, Bosnia and Herzegovina 18th at 0.30%, and Poland 21st at 0.25%. Several countries with notable coal industries, such as the United States (rank 26, 0.17%) and Germany (rank 49, 0.014%), rank relatively low because their large GDPs dilute the percentage even when absolute coal rents may be significant. At rank 69, Armenia records a near-zero value of 0.0000028%, and ranks 70 through 199 — 130 countries in total — share a value of exactly 0.00%, indicating either no coal production or rents insufficient to register as a share of GDP.
A key limitation of this metric is that it measures coal rents as a share of GDP, which means countries with very large economies can appear to underperform relative to smaller economies even with substantial coal output. The 0.00% value shared by 130 countries does not distinguish between countries with no coal resources and those where production costs equal or exceed market value. Year-over-year volatility averages 45.0%, close to the 50% threshold, reflecting sensitivity to coal price fluctuations and GDP changes. The Cabo Verde figure at rank 1 (17.18%) is a confirmed extreme outlier and should be interpreted with caution, as its unusually high ratio may reflect data idiosyncrasies or a very small GDP base rather than a dominant coal sector in absolute terms.
Methodology
Data are drawn from the World Bank World Development Indicators, indicator code NY.GDP.COAL.RT.ZS, for the reference year 2021. Coal rents are defined verbatim as: the difference between the value of both hard and soft coal production at world prices and their total costs of production. Values are expressed as a percentage of GDP. The dataset covers 199 countries. Of these, 188 out of 199 (94.5%) have data from 2021 specifically, and 194 out of 199 (97.5%) have data from within the last seven years. All 199 datapoints (100%) are classified as official quality, exceeding the 70% threshold. The viability checks identified 22 extreme outliers at the 3-sigma threshold, and average year-over-year change is 45.0%, just below the 50% volatility threshold. The value range runs from 0.00% to 17.18%, a spread of over 999%. Countries with no coal production or where production costs meet or exceed market prices report 0.00% and are ranked jointly at rank 70.