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Government revenues as a share of GDP

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Clean Water & Sanitation

What you should know about this indicator

  • Government revenue in this indicator includes all types of revenue, such as taxes, social contributions, grants, and other income. The total revenue is expressed as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP).
  • This indicator refers to revenues of the , which includes all levels of government (central, state, and local) and social security funds. Where general government data is not available, it relies on data, which may not include all levels of government.

Total government revenue as a proportion of GDP (%)

Definition:

Revenue is defined as an increase in net worth resulting from a transaction. It is a fiscal indicator for assessing the sustainability of fiscal activities.

General government units have four types of revenue. The major types of revenue are taxes, social contributions, grants, and other revenue. Of these, compulsory levies and transfers are the main sources of revenue for most general government units.

In particular, taxes are compulsory, unrequited amounts receivable by government units from institutional units. Social contributions are actual or imputed revenue receivable by social insurance schemes to make provision for social insurance benefits payable. Grants are transfers receivable by government units from other resident or non-resident government units or international organizations, and that do not meet the definition of a tax, subsidy, or social contribution.

Other revenue is all revenue receivable excluding taxes, social contributions, and grants. Other revenue comprises: (i) property income; (ii) sales of goods and services; (iii) fines, penalties, and forfeits; (iv) transfers not elsewhere classified; and (v) premiums, fees, and claims related to non-life insurance and standardized guarantee schemes.

Further information available at: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/files/Metadata-17-01-01.pdf

Government revenues as a share of GDP
Taxes, social contributions, and other revenues such as fines, fees, rent, and income from property or sales included.
Source
International Monetary Fund – with minor processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
August 27, 2024
Next expected update
August 2026
Date range
2000–2022
Unit
%

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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.
International Monetary Fund 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-17-01-01.pdf.

How we process data at Our World in Data

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.

Read about our data pipeline

Reuse this work

  • 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: Government revenues as a share of GDP”, part of the following publication: Hannah Ritchie, Fiona Spooner, and Max Roser (2021) - “Clean Water and Sanitation”. Data adapted from International Monetary Fund. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/government-revenues-as-a-share-of-gdp-imf [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:

International Monetary Fund – with minor processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

International Monetary Fund – with minor processing by Our World in Data. “Government revenues as a share of GDP” [dataset]. International Monetary Fund, “IMF” [original data]. Retrieved May 24, 2025 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/government-revenues-as-a-share-of-gdp-imf