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Share of firms experiencing at least one bribe payment request

See all data and research on:
Corruption

What you should know about this indicator

  • Measures the share of firms that experienced at least one request for a gift or informal payment across six types of public transactions.
  • Covers applications for electrical connections, water connections, construction permits, meetings with tax officials, import licenses (authorization to import specific goods), and operating licenses (permit to legally conduct business activities).
  • Data are collected through structured interviews with private sector firms.
  • Refusal to answer a question is treated as an affirmative response indicating bribery occurred.
  • Corruption imposes administrative and financial burdens, reduces operational efficiency, and increases costs and risks for firms.
  • Regional and global averages are computed by taking a simple average of country-level results using only the latest available survey data per country since 2014.

The percentage of firms experiencing at least one bribe payment request across six types of public transactions: electrical and water connections, construction permits, meetings with tax officials, import licenses, and operating licenses. Refusals are treated as affirmative responses.

Share of firms experiencing at least one bribe payment request
The percentage of businesses that encountered at least one bribe request when dealing with six public services - such as import or operating licenses, construction permits, utility connections, and dealings with tax officials.
Source
World Bank Enterprise Surveys (2024) – with minor processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
May 12, 2025
Next expected update
May 2026
Date range
2006–2025
Unit
%

Related research and writing

A dark blue background with a lighter blue world map superimposed over it. Yellow text that says Corruption by Our World in Data

Corruption

Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Max Roser
Sustainable development goal 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

Promote just, peaceful and inclusive societies

Our World in Data team

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

The World Bank Enterprise Surveys provide comprehensive economic data on more than 250,000 firms across 168 economies. The data is designed to support researchers, policymakers, and the public. It includes information from over 405 standard surveys, 15 informal sector enterprise surveys in multiple cities, micro-enterprise surveys, other specialized surveys, and cross-economy databases.

In some economies, businesses may face demands for unofficial payments or gifts to "get things done." The indicators in this dataset capture the prevalence of different forms of bribery across 159 economies, based on surveys of more than 219,000 firms.

Retrieved on
May 12, 2025
Retrieved from
https://www.enterprisesurveys.org/en/data/exploretopics/corruption
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.
World Bank Enterprise Surveys, www.enterprisesurveys.org

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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.

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  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable 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 firms experiencing at least one bribe payment request”, part of the following publication: Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Max Roser (2019) - “Corruption”. Data adapted from World Bank Enterprise Surveys. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/bribery-incidence-for-firms [online resource]
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:

World Bank Enterprise Surveys (2024) – with minor processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

World Bank Enterprise Surveys (2024) – with minor processing by Our World in Data. “Share of firms experiencing at least one bribe payment request” [dataset]. World Bank Enterprise Surveys, “Enterprise Surveys - Corruption” [original data]. Retrieved May 24, 2025 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/bribery-incidence-for-firms