The Law To Know

Law in Charts · Courts, police and prisons

What governments spend on public order and safety, per inhabitant

How many euro per inhabitant does government spend each year on public order and safety as a whole?

30 of 30 shown in the list

euro per inhabitant per year, general government spending

  1. Luxembourg1,872 2025
  2. Switzerland1,607 2024
  3. Iceland1,420 2024
  4. Netherlands1,204 2024
  5. Belgium901 2024
  6. Norway866 2024
  7. Germany847 2024
  8. Sweden844 2024
  9. Austria808 2024
  10. Ireland778 2024
  11. France759 2024
  12. Latvia684 2024
  13. Italy663 2024
  14. Finland650 2024
  15. Denmark642 2024
  16. Cyprus607 2024
  17. Malta599 2024
  18. Spain589 2024
  19. Slovakia560 2024
  20. Poland556 2024
  21. Croatia543 2024
  22. Estonia533 2024
  23. Romania523 2024
  24. Slovenia487 2024
  25. Czechia485 2024

Source: Eurostat, General government expenditure by function (COFOG) GF03, divided by the population on 1 January (demo_pjan). Data for 2024 to 2025. What it counts, how to cite it and the data

At a glance

  • 30 countries or territories have a figure.
  • The highest is Luxembourg at 1,872 (2025) and the lowest is Hungary at 378 (2024).
  • The middle value (the median) is 625.

What it counts

General government spending on the whole function 'public order and safety' (COFOG 03): police, fire protection, law courts, prisons and related research and administration, divided by the population on 1 January.

What it leaves out, and how far to trust a comparison

The figure is general government spending (central, regional and local together) in euro at the prices of its year, divided by the population. Prices and wages differ a great deal between countries, so a higher figure does not mean more, or better, justice. Countries also fund and classify some activities differently, and very small countries can show extreme figures.

Source

Eurostat: General government expenditure by function (COFOG) GF03, divided by the population on 1 January (demo_pjan). Source licence: CC BY 4.0. Data retrieved 2026-10-23 to 2026-10-25.

Cite this chart

Free to use in teaching, articles, reports and slides, with credit. Our compilation is licensed CC BY 4.0; the source publishes the underlying data under its own licence, shown below.

Reference (APA style)

TheLawToKnow. (2026). What governments spend on public order and safety, per inhabitant [Chart]. Law in Charts. https://tools.thelawtoknow.com/law-in-charts/spending-public-order. Data: Eurostat, General government expenditure by function (COFOG) GF03, divided by the population on 1 January (demo_pjan), https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/gov_10a_exp/default/table (data retrieved 2026-10-23 to 2026-10-25).

Short credit for slides and websites

Chart: TheLawToKnow, Law in Charts (https://tools.thelawtoknow.com/law-in-charts/spending-public-order). Data: Eurostat.

BibTeX

@misc{spendingpublicorder2026,
  author = {{TheLawToKnow}},
  title = {What governments spend on public order and safety, per inhabitant},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Law in Charts},
  url = {https://tools.thelawtoknow.com/law-in-charts/spending-public-order},
  note = {Data: Eurostat, General government expenditure by function (COFOG) GF03, divided by the population on 1 January (demo_pjan), https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/gov_10a_exp/default/table. Retrieved 2026-10-23 to 2026-10-25.}
}

Embed this chart on your own page

<iframe src="https://tools.thelawtoknow.com/embed/law-in-charts/spending-public-order" title="What governments spend on public order and safety, per inhabitant, TheLawToKnow Law in Charts" width="100%" height="620" style="border:0" loading="lazy"></iframe>

Download the data (CSV)

Learn more

More in Courts, police and prisons

General information, not legal advice. All charts.