Countries by People with basic handwashing facilities including soap and water (% of population)

Ranking 2024

Values shown in %.

Analysis

This metric measures the percentage of people living in households that have a handwashing facility with soap and water available on the premises. Handwashing facilities may be fixed or mobile and include a sink with tap water, buckets with taps, tippy-taps, and jugs or basins designated for handwashing. Soap includes bar soap, liquid soap, powder detergent, and soapy water but does not include ash, soil, sand or other substitutes. The unit is percentage of population, and higher values indicate broader access. Data comes from the World Bank World Development Indicators, indicator code SH.STA.HYGN.ZS, covering 119 countries. Of these, 113 out of 119 countries (95.0%) have data from within the last seven years, and 100% of datapoints are classified as official. The ranking year is 2024, though 91 of 119 countries (76.5%) report data specifically from that year.

The top of the ranking is dominated by Middle Eastern and Central Asian countries. Bahrain (rank 1, 100%), Qatar (rank 1, 100%), and Turkmenistan (rank 1, 100%) all reach full population coverage. North Macedonia follows at rank 4 with 99.67%, and Montenegro at rank 5 with 99.24%. Kazakhstan (rank 6, 99.01%) and Saudi Arabia (rank 9, 98.43%) also place in the top ten. The Philippines (rank 12, 97.29%) and China (rank 13, 97.27%) represent the largest populations in the upper tier, showing high coverage despite their scale. The top 15 countries all report values above 97%.

The middle of the ranking shows wide variation across regions. India ranks 33rd at 89.69%, while Colombia places 61st at 70.43% and Jamaica 62nd at 70.37%, both notably lower than other countries in the Americas. The Dominican Republic places 72nd at 48.53%, a sharp drop from regional neighbors. Bolivia sits at rank 89 with 27.04%. Sub-Saharan African countries occupy most of the bottom quarter: Nigeria ranks 87th at 31.31%, Rwanda 106th at 18.45%, Tanzania 108th at 17.46%, and Burundi 117th at 6.36%. Ethiopia ranks 118th at 5.85% and Liberia last at 3.49%. The bottom 30 countries all fall below 37%, with the lowest 10 all under 20%.

Several limitations apply to this metric. Household surveys are the primary source for this indicator, and survey timing and methodology vary across countries, which can introduce inconsistency in cross-country comparisons. The fact that only 76.5% of countries have data specifically from 2024 means some rankings reflect older observations. The metric measures availability of handwashing facilities on premises but does not capture whether they are actually used, how frequently, or whether soap is consistently present at the time of use. Facilities that are present but non-functional or intermittently supplied would still count if soap and water are available at the time of survey. Small island territories such as Aruba (rank 8, 98.61%) and Tuvalu (rank 25, 93.91%) appear alongside much larger nations, and their values may reflect different survey contexts.

Methodology

Data is drawn from the World Bank World Development Indicators, indicator code SH.STA.HYGN.ZS, for the reference year 2024. The metric is defined as: the percentage of people living in households that have a handwashing facility with soap and water available on the premises. Handwashing facilities may be fixed or mobile and include a sink with tap water, buckets with taps, tippy-taps, and jugs or basins designated for handwashing. Soap includes bar soap, liquid soap, powder detergent, and soapy water but does not include ash, soil, sand or other substitutes. The ranking covers 119 countries. Of these, 113 (95.0%) have data from within the last seven years, and 100% of datapoints are classified as official quality. Data for 91 of 119 countries (76.5%) is specifically from 2024; the remainder reflects the most recent available year. No extreme outliers were identified using a 3-standard-deviation threshold. The average year-over-year change across the dataset is 1.6%, indicating low volatility. Values range from 3.49% (Liberia) to 100% (Bahrain, Qatar, Turkmenistan), a spread of 2767.3%.

Sources

• World Bank