Countries with the Highest Government Spending (% of GDP)
Key Findings
About This Dataset
Countries with the Highest Government Spending (% of GDP)France has the highest government spending relative to its economy, at 57.2% of GDP, narrowly ahead of Finland (56.8%). Belgium (55.2%) and Austria (53.4%) follow, and Italy (50.6%) is the only other country above 50%. All ten of the biggest spenders are European, underlining how the continent's social-democratic model - with extensive public services and large transfer systems - drives up state spending. Below the top five, a tight band runs from Croatia (48.7%) and Hungary (48.7%) through Greece (48.6%), Sweden (48.2%) and Germany (48.2%), all clustered near 48%. The concentration of Western and Central European welfare states at the top contrasts sharply with lower-spending economies elsewhere, where governments consume a much smaller share of national output.
Data Insights
Numbers, trends & sources behind this chart
Methodology & source
- Data source
- International Monetary Fund (IMF)
- Coverage
- 10 entities · 10 observations
- Measure
- General Government Spending 2024 (% of GDP)
- Last updated
- 13 July 2026
- Compiled by
- The ANYSTAT team, from the source above
- Values are shown as reported by the source. Nothing is rescaled, rebased or converted — the only changes are thousand separators and decimals shown to two places.
- Entities are ranked highest-first on their value.
Data Sources & References
All external sources cited in this dataset
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