Countries by People using safely managed sanitation services, urban (% of urban population)

Three countries — Andorra, Monaco, and Singapore — achieve 100% coverage of safely managed sanitation services among their urban populations, the highest possible value in this ranking. At the opposite end, Armenia records 0%, placing it last among 124 countries. The 100-percentage-point gap between the top and bottom illustrates the scale of disparity in urban sanitation infrastructure worldwide.

Population & Health category

Ranking 2024

Values shown in %.

Countries by People using safely managed sanitation services, urban (% of urban population)
Rank	Country	%
1	Andorra	100.00
1	Monaco	100.00
1	Singapore	100.00
4	Kuwait	100.00
5	Austria	99.95
6	Switzerland	99.77
7	Chile	99.19
8	United Kingdom	98.96
9	United Arab Emirates	98.44
10	Germany	98.33
11	Lithuania	97.90
12	Estonia	97.84
13	Greece	97.73
14	Netherlands	97.50
15	Israel	97.36
16	United States	97.19
17	Luxembourg	96.94
18	Portugal	96.52
19	Sweden	95.82
20	Hong Kong	94.83
21	Czechia	94.51
22	Hungary	93.23
23	Ukraine	92.37
24	Kyrgyzstan	89.65
25	Slovakia	89.50
26	Tunisia	89.17
27	Ireland	86.85
28	Cyprus	86.22
29	Saudi Arabia	86.22
30	Palestine	85.14
31	Croatia	85.14
32	China	85.06
33	Jordan	82.54
34	Canada	81.23
35	Belarus	81.11
36	Macao	79.96
37	Bulgaria	79.55
38	Italy	78.57
39	Türkiye	78.13
40	Mongolia	77.78
41	Moldova	77.22
42	Kazakhstan	75.94
43	Iran	75.33
44	South Africa	74.81
45	Mauritius	72.23
46	Georgia	71.08
47	Laos	69.27
48	Egypt	68.97
49	Azerbaijan	67.63
50	Yemen	65.55
51	Mexico	65.35
52	Russia	64.94
53	Algeria	64.57
54	Albania	63.33
55	Jamaica	63.23
56	Uzbekistan	63.14
57	Peru	60.06
58	Bosnia and Herzegovina	58.10
59	Brazil	56.61
60	India	55.79
61	Montenegro	55.45
62	Philippines	54.05
63	Mozambique	53.33
64	Cambodia	52.83
65	Myanmar	52.69
66	Iraq	52.23
67	Paraguay	51.28
68	Panama	50.29
69	Trinidad and Tobago	46.41
70	Comoros	46.09
71	Nepal	45.96
72	Argentina	45.57
73	Djibouti	44.76
74	Bhutan	44.41
75	Ecuador	43.97
76	Samoa	43.48
77	Fiji	42.53
78	Dominican Republic	42.25
79	Cuba	41.88
80	Malawi	41.16
81	Vietnam	41.02
82	Eswatini	40.86
83	Morocco	40.77
84	Tanzania	39.48
85	Tuvalu	37.36
86	Nigeria	36.83
87	Sao Tome and Principe	35.48
88	Lesotho	34.65
89	Guyana	34.14
90	Turks and Caicos Islands	33.32
91	Nauru	33.16
92	Côte d'Ivoire	32.20
93	Chad	32.02
94	Burkina Faso	31.38
95	Gambia	31.03
96	Papua New Guinea	31.00
97	Bangladesh	30.74
98	Thailand	30.73
99	Guinea-Bissau	30.40
100	El Salvador	28.91
101	Kenya	27.86
102	Senegal	27.54
103	Kiribati	25.32
104	Afghanistan	24.94
105	Uganda	24.62
106	Niger	24.42
107	Costa Rica	24.33
108	Sierra Leone	24.32
109	Central African Republic	23.43
110	Tonga	22.21
111	Benin	21.82
112	Suriname	20.69
113	Serbia	19.95
114	Ethiopia	18.94
115	Ghana	17.64
116	Somalia	17.35
117	Madagascar	16.75
118	DR Congo	15.15
119	Togo	14.97
120	Zimbabwe	10.34
121	Mali	9.75
122	North Macedonia	8.19
123	Colombia	7.19
124	Armenia	0.00

Analysis

This metric measures the percentage of urban residents using safely managed sanitation services. According to the source definition, this covers people using improved sanitation facilities that are not shared with other households and where excreta are safely disposed of in situ or transported and treated offsite. Improved sanitation facilities include flush/pour flush to piped sewer systems, septic tanks or pit latrines: ventilated improved pit latrines, compositing toilets or pit latrines with slabs. The unit is the percentage of the urban population. The dataset covers 124 countries using data from the World Bank World Development Indicators (indicator code SH.STA.SMSS.UR.ZS), with a reference year of 2024. All 124 countries have data from the last seven years, and 100% of datapoints are classified as official-quality. No extreme outliers were identified using a three-standard-deviation threshold.

The top of the ranking is dominated by high-income countries and city-states. Andorra, Monaco, and Singapore all score 100% (ranks 1 to 3). Kuwait follows closely at rank 4 with 99.999%, and Austria ranks 5th at 99.953%. Switzerland (rank 6, 99.770%), Chile (rank 7, 99.191%), the United Kingdom (rank 8, 98.956%), and Germany (rank 10, 98.327%) also place in the top tier. Several European countries cluster between 95% and 98%, including the Netherlands (rank 14, 97.5%), the United States (rank 16, 97.190%), and Sweden (rank 19, 95.818%). These rankings reflect consistently high values across the upper quarter of the distribution.

The middle of the ranking shows considerable variation. China ranks 32nd at 85.056%, while Canada sits lower at rank 34 with 81.230%. Italy ranks 38th at 78.570%, noticeably below most of its Western European peers. Brazil ranks 59th at 56.608%, and India ranks 60th at 55.792%. The lower portion of the ranking includes countries such as Nigeria (rank 86, 36.832%), Bangladesh (rank 97, 30.743%), and Thailand (rank 98, 30.728%). Costa Rica ranks 107th at 24.326%, placing it below several countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Serbia ranks 113th at 19.946%, and Colombia ranks 123rd at just 7.188%, second to last. Armenia ranks last at 0%.

Several data limitations apply to this metric. The indicator captures only the urban population and does not reflect rural sanitation conditions, which can differ substantially. The measure depends on household-level data collection and national reporting, which varies in methodology and frequency across countries. The definition requires that facilities be unshared and that excreta be safely managed, meaning some households with physically improved facilities may not be counted if those conditions are not met. The wide range of values — from 0% to 100% — and the uneven distribution across the 124 countries means that regional comparisons should be made with attention to differing data collection timelines and estimation methods.

Methodology

Data are drawn from the World Bank World Development Indicators, indicator code SH.STA.SMSS.UR.ZS, with a reference year of 2024. The metric is defined as the percentage of people using improved sanitation facilities that are not shared with other households and where excreta are safely disposed of in situ or transported and treated offsite. Improved sanitation facilities include flush/pour flush to piped sewer systems, septic tanks or pit latrines: ventilated improved pit latrines, compositing toilets or pit latrines with slabs. The ranking covers 124 countries, all of which have data from within the last seven years, meeting the recency threshold. All datapoints are classified as official quality, exceeding the 70% quality threshold. The data range spans 0% to 100%, a spread of 100 percentage points. No extreme outliers were identified under a three-standard-deviation test. Average year-over-year change is 2.3%, well within the 50% volatility threshold. Values are expressed as a percentage of the urban population only; rural populations are excluded from this indicator.

Sources

World Bank