Countries by People using safely managed drinking water services (% of population)

Ten countries, including Singapore, Iceland, Kuwait, and New Zealand, achieve 100% coverage of safely managed drinking water services. At the other end of the ranking, the Central African Republic records 6.22%, and Chad 6.34%, leaving the vast majority of their populations without access to safe water on premises. The 93.78 percentage-point gap between the top and bottom of this ranking reflects one of the widest disparities across any public health measure tracked by the World Bank.

Population & Health category

Ranking 2024

Values shown in %.

Countries by People using safely managed drinking water services (% of population)
Rank	Country	%
1	Gibraltar	100.00
1	Hong Kong	100.00
1	Hungary	100.00
1	Iceland	100.00
1	Kuwait	100.00
1	Liechtenstein	100.00
1	Macao	100.00
1	Monaco	100.00
1	New Zealand	100.00
1	Singapore	100.00
11	San Marino	100.00
12	Netherlands	99.96
13	Denmark	99.92
14	Germany	99.92
15	Isle of Man	99.91
16	Malta	99.83
17	United Kingdom	99.82
18	Sweden	99.76
19	Cyprus	99.72
20	France	99.71
21	Luxembourg	99.65
22	Finland	99.65
23	Slovenia	99.57
24	Slovakia	99.57
25	Belgium	99.55
26	Israel	99.46
27	Spain	99.46
28	South Korea	99.28
29	Norway	99.06
30	Estonia	98.94
31	Puerto Rico	98.94
32	Bahrain	98.90
33	Austria	98.89
34	Japan	98.73
35	U.S. Virgin Islands	98.68
36	United Arab Emirates	98.64
37	Czechia	98.14
38	Chile	97.82
39	United States	97.57
40	Latvia	97.01
41	Canada	96.89
42	New Caledonia	96.87
43	Italy	96.76
44	Lithuania	96.73
45	Switzerland	96.70
46	Greece	96.69
47	Saint Martin (French part)	96.63
48	Bulgaria	96.21
49	Ireland	96.13
50	Qatar	95.35
51	Portugal	95.22
52	Turkmenistan	94.85
53	Malaysia	94.70
54	Iran	94.41
55	Guam	94.00
56	Belarus	93.06
57	Kazakhstan	91.55
58	Oman	91.10
59	Palau	90.78
60	Andorra	90.64
61	American Samoa	90.54
62	French Polynesia	90.45
63	Grenada	89.92
64	Jordan	88.95
65	Poland	88.68
66	Brazil	88.62
67	Ukraine	87.87
68	Croatia	87.27
69	Bosnia and Herzegovina	86.40
70	Montenegro	85.50
71	Romania	82.18
72	Armenia	82.07
73	Uzbekistan	81.93
74	Northern Mariana Islands	81.45
75	North Macedonia	80.79
76	Palestine	80.64
77	Costa Rica	80.50
78	Morocco	79.98
79	Egypt	78.94
80	India	76.44
81	Russia	76.26
82	Moldova	75.82
83	Serbia	74.97
84	Colombia	74.34
85	Kyrgyzstan	73.88
86	Albania	70.79
87	Georgia	70.53
88	Ecuador	69.89
89	Trinidad and Tobago	69.37
90	Algeria	69.03
91	South Africa	68.01
92	Guyana	67.17
93	North Korea	66.61
94	Bhutan	65.59
95	Honduras	65.52
96	Tajikistan	65.11
97	Tunisia	64.98
98	Seychelles	64.70
99	Paraguay	64.36
100	Botswana	63.29
101	Samoa	62.50
102	Iraq	59.83
103	Myanmar	59.72
104	Bangladesh	59.13
105	Vietnam	58.58
106	Azerbaijan	57.81
107	Suriname	55.85
108	Peru	49.43
109	Guatemala	48.79
110	Philippines	48.48
111	Gambia	48.18
112	Lebanon	47.70
113	Turks and Caicos Islands	47.05
114	Sri Lanka	46.93
115	Republic of Congo	45.87
116	Dominican Republic	45.33
117	Pakistan	44.97
118	Mongolia	43.36
119	Mexico	42.97
120	Ghana	42.94
121	Fiji	42.11
122	Eswatini	38.22
123	Sao Tome and Principe	36.68
124	Côte d'Ivoire	36.45
125	Laos	35.19
126	Tanzania	31.33
127	Lesotho	31.32
128	Afghanistan	30.55
129	Indonesia	30.46
130	Cambodia	29.99
131	Nigeria	29.90
132	Tonga	29.60
133	Mozambique	27.54
134	Senegal	27.19
135	Zimbabwe	25.46
136	Guinea-Bissau	23.99
137	Madagascar	22.06
138	Togo	20.52
139	Vanuatu	19.20
140	Nauru	18.66
141	Malawi	18.18
142	Uganda	18.10
143	Benin	17.70
144	Nepal	16.49
145	Kiribati	15.09
146	Ethiopia	13.55
147	DR Congo	11.87
148	Sierra Leone	10.90
149	Tuvalu	8.72
150	Chad	6.34
151	Central African Republic	6.22

Analysis

This metric measures the percentage of people using drinking water from an improved source that is accessible on premises, available when needed and free from faecal and priority chemical contamination. Improved water sources include piped water, boreholes or tubewells, protected dug wells, protected springs, and packaged or delivered water. Values are expressed as a share of the total population, where higher is better. The dataset covers 151 countries, with 150 of 151 (99.3%) providing data from the last seven years and 148 of 151 (98.0%) reporting data in the latest reference year of 2024. All 100% of datapoints are classified as official-quality estimates. No extreme statistical outliers were identified using a 3-standard-deviation threshold, and average year-over-year change across the dataset is 0.9%, indicating stable reporting.

All ten countries tied at rank 1 with 100% coverage are geographically and economically diverse, spanning European city-states such as Monaco and Liechtenstein, high-income Asian territories including Hong Kong SAR, China and Singapore, and the Gulf state of Kuwait. Immediately below them, San Marino (rank 11) records 99.9999961845643%, followed by the Netherlands (rank 12) at 99.9595% and Denmark (rank 13) at 99.9188%. These near-perfect scores cluster heavily among high-income European nations, Gulf states, and small island territories with centralized infrastructure. Korea, Rep. (rank 28) at 99.28% and Japan (rank 34) at 98.73% represent the highest-ranking large East Asian economies.

Several placements in the middle of the ranking are notable. Poland ranks 65th at 88.68%, lower than Brazil (rank 66, 88.62%), despite being a European Union member. Russia ranks 81st at 76.26%, below India (rank 80, 76.44%). Mexico ranks 119th at 42.97%, placing it below Mongolia (rank 118, 43.36%) and Pakistan (rank 117, 44.97%). The Philippines sits at rank 110 with 48.48%, while Lebanon, listed at rank 112 with a reported value of exactly 47.7%, is one of the few entries without decimal precision, suggesting a rounded or modeled estimate. Indonesia ranks 129th at 30.46%, placing it near Afghanistan (rank 128, 30.55%), and Nigeria (rank 131) at 29.90% sits below Myanmar (rank 103, 59.72%) by nearly 30 percentage points.

Several data limitations apply to this metric. The safely managed drinking water indicator requires simultaneous satisfaction of multiple criteria: on-premises access, availability when needed, and absence of contamination. Countries that score high on basic water access may score considerably lower here, as contamination testing and reliability data are not uniformly available or reported. For some countries, particularly those in lower-income groups, values may be modeled or interpolated rather than drawn from direct surveys, which can reduce comparability. Lebanon's value of exactly 47.7% with no decimal variation is consistent with a rounded or estimated figure. The indicator does not capture inequality within countries — national averages can mask large urban-rural or income-based disparities. Packaged and delivered water are counted as improved sources, which may inflate scores in contexts where tap water quality is poor but bottled water is widely purchased.

Methodology

Data are drawn from the World Bank World Development Indicators, indicator code SH.H2O.SMDW.ZS, with a reference year of 2024. The metric measures the percentage of people using drinking water from an improved source that is accessible on premises, available when needed and free from faecal and priority chemical contamination; improved water sources include piped water, boreholes or tubewells, protected dug wells, protected springs, and packaged or delivered water. The ranking covers 151 countries. Of these, 150 of 151 (99.3%) have data from the last seven years, and 148 of 151 (98.0%) report data in the latest year. All datapoints (100%) are classified as official-quality estimates, exceeding the 70% quality threshold. No extreme outliers were detected at the 3-standard-deviation threshold. Average year-over-year change is 0.9%, well below the 50% volatility threshold. Values range from 6.22% (Central African Republic) to 100% (ten countries tied at rank 1), a spread of 1508.4%. No microstates under 1 million population are included in the dataset.

Sources

World Bank