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What governments spend on public order and safety, as a share of GDP

What share of national income does government spend each year on public order and safety as a whole?

30 of 30 shown in the list

% of gross domestic product, general government spending

  1. Latvia3.12% 2024
  2. Romania2.81% 2024
  3. Bulgaria2.77% 2024
  4. Croatia2.40% 2024
  5. Poland2.39% 2024
  6. Slovakia2.30% 2024
  7. Greece2.04% 2024
  8. Netherlands1.94% 2024
  9. Estonia1.84% 2024
  10. Spain1.79% 2024
  11. France1.78% 2024
  12. Iceland1.78% 2024
  13. Italy1.77% 2024
  14. Hungary1.76% 2024
  15. Belgium1.72% 2024
  16. Czechia1.64% 2024
  17. Portugal1.64% 2024
  18. Cyprus1.62% 2024
  19. Germany1.61% 2024
  20. Switzerland1.61% 2024
  21. Sweden1.58% 2024
  22. Lithuania1.54% 2024
  23. Slovenia1.53% 2024
  24. Austria1.48% 2024
  25. Malta1.46% 2024

Source: Eurostat, General government expenditure by function (COFOG) GF03, divided by gross domestic product at current prices (nama_10_gdp). 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 Latvia at 3.12% (2024) and the lowest is Ireland at 0.74% (2024).
  • The middle value (the median) is 1.68%.

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 gross domestic product.

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

The figure is general government spending (central, regional and local together) as a share of the country's gross domestic product of the same year. A rich country can spend more per person and less as a share of its income, and the reverse, so read it together with the figure per inhabitant. Countries fund and classify some activities differently.

Source

Eurostat: General government expenditure by function (COFOG) GF03, divided by gross domestic product at current prices (nama_10_gdp). 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, as a share of GDP [Chart]. Law in Charts. https://tools.thelawtoknow.com/law-in-charts/spending-public-order-gdp. Data: Eurostat, General government expenditure by function (COFOG) GF03, divided by gross domestic product at current prices (nama_10_gdp), 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-gdp). Data: Eurostat.

BibTeX

@misc{spendingpublicordergdp2026,
  author = {{TheLawToKnow}},
  title = {What governments spend on public order and safety, as a share of GDP},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Law in Charts},
  url = {https://tools.thelawtoknow.com/law-in-charts/spending-public-order-gdp},
  note = {Data: Eurostat, General government expenditure by function (COFOG) GF03, divided by gross domestic product at current prices (nama_10_gdp), https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/gov_10a_exp/default/table. Retrieved 2026-10-23 to 2026-10-25.}
}

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