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Share of people who said they were asked for a bribe or paid one

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Corruption

What you should know about this indicator

  • This indicator measures how common bribery is in people’s everyday interactions with public officials. It shows the share of individuals who, in the past year, either paid a bribe or were asked to pay one during contact with a public official.
  • Bribes can take the form of money, gifts, or favors given in exchange for special treatment. The focus is on petty or administrative bribery — the kind people may face when accessing basic services, such as dealing with the police, schools, or healthcare.
  • “Public officials” refers to anyone holding a legislative, executive, administrative, or judicial role — including police officers, customs agents, judges, teachers, and doctors. The data does not cover high-level political corruption, trading of influence, or abuse of office.
  • Data comes primarily from national surveys, where respondents report their own direct experiences. Reports involving intermediaries (e.g. a bribe paid through someone else) are included, but second-hand accounts from other household members are excluded.
  • When national data is unavailable or insufficient, estimates may draw on Global Corruption Barometer (GCB) data, provided it aligns closely with UNODC definitions. These estimates are reviewed and validated by national authorities, usually through national statistics offices.
  • In some cases — such as Peru and Panama — estimates differ from published GCB figures. These differences may arise from variations in survey scope (e.g. GCB asks about 6–8 specific services, while other surveys ask more generally), sample size, how people without recent contact with officials are handled, or how surveys are conducted (e.g. phone vs. in-person).
  • Because bribery often leaves no paper trail, surveys remain one of the most practical ways to measure it. However, earlier surveys often excluded people who were asked for a bribe but refused to pay. This likely led to underestimates. More recent efforts aim to correct this by applying standardised methods across countries.

This indicator is defined as the percentage of persons who paid at least one bribe (gave a public official money, a gift or counter favour) to a public official, or were asked for a bribe by these public officials, in the last 12 months, as a percentage of persons who had at least one contact with a public official in the same period.

In the International Classification of Crime for Statistical Purposes (ICCS), bribery is defined as: ‘Promising, offering, giving, soliciting, or accepting an undue advantage to or from a public official or a person who directs or works in a private sector entity, directly or indirectly, in order that the person act or refrain from acting in the exercise of his or her official duties’ (ICCS Category 07031).

This definition is based on definitions of bribery of national public officials, bribery of foreign public officials and official of international organisations and bribery in the private sector that are contained in the United Nations Convention against Corruption (articles 15, 16, and 21). While the concept of bribery is broader, as it includes also actions such as promising or offering, and it covers both public and private sector, this indicator focuses on specific forms of bribery that are more measurable (the giving and/or requesting of bribes) and it limits the scope to the public sector.

The concept of undue advantage is operationalized by reference to giving of money (in addition to an official fee), gifts or provision of a service requested/offered by/to a public official in exchange for a special treatment. This indicator captures the often called ‘administrative bribery’, which is often intended as the type of bribery affecting citizens in their dealings with public administrations and/or civil servants.

For this indicator, public official refers to persons holding a legislative, executive, administrative or judicial office.

In the operationalization of the indicator, a list of selected officials and civil servants is used.

Further information available at: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/files/Metadata-16-05-01.pdf

Share of people who said they were asked for a bribe or paid one
Share of respondents who reported having contact with a public official in the past 12 months and paying or being asked to pay a .
Source
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime – with minor processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
August 27, 2024
Next expected update
August 2026
Date range
2004–2022
Unit
%

Related research and writing

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Corruption

Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Max Roser
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Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) dataset is the primary collection of data tracking progress towards the SDG indicators, compiled from officially-recognized international sources.

Retrieved on
August 27, 2024
Retrieved from
https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/dataportal
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime via UN SDG Indicators Database (https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/dataportal), UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (accessed 2024). More information available at: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/files/Metadata-16-05-01.pdf.

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All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

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Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Share of people who said they were asked for a bribe or paid one”, part of the following publication: Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Max Roser (2019) - “Corruption”. Data adapted from United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Retrieved from https://mdim-pisa.owid.pages.dev:8789/20250704-121343/grapher/bribery-prevalence-un.html [online resource] (archived on July 4, 2025).
How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime – with minor processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime – with minor processing by Our World in Data. “Share of people who said they were asked for a bribe or paid one” [dataset]. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, “Data from multiple sources” [original data]. Retrieved July 11, 2025 from https://mdim-pisa.owid.pages.dev:8789/20250704-121343/grapher/bribery-prevalence-un.html (archived on July 4, 2025).