Technology · one question
How many people have never used the internet?
26 out of 100 people had not used the internet in 2025.
What this actually measures
Share of people who did NOT use the internet in 2025 — not "never in their life". World Bank / ITU counts anyone who used the internet in the last 3 months as a user; the denominator is the whole population, children included.
So the honest headline is “had not used the internet in 2025”, not “never in their life” — a person offline this year may well have been online before. That distinction is the whole point.
Fewer every year
Share of the world offline, %. 2005–2025.
Where people are still mostly offline
| Most offline | Offline % | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Burundi | 91.4 | 2024 |
| Uganda | 91.1 | 2024 |
| Chad | 87.4 | 2024 |
| Central African Republic | 86.2 | 2024 |
| Niger | 84.4 | 2024 |
| Afghanistan | 83.9 | 2024 |
| Zambia | 82.9 | 2024 |
| Madagascar | 81.3 | 2024 |
| Most online | Online % | Year |
|---|---|---|
| United Arab Emirates | 100 | 2024 |
| Bahrain | 100 | 2024 |
| Kuwait | 100 | 2025 |
| Saudi Arabia | 100 | 2024 |
| Denmark | 99.8 | 2024 |
| Luxembourg | 99.1 | 2025 |
| Monaco | 99 | 2024 |
| Norway | 99 | 2024 |
Country ranking uses each country’s latest value from 2022 onward (185 countries); 28 with only older data are excluded so a 1990 reading is never compared with a 2025 one.
Methodology & sources
- Indicator
- Individuals using the Internet (% of population) — code
IT.NET.USER.ZS, unit “% of population”. - Source
- World Bank: IT.NET.USER.ZS (primary data: ITU). License CC BY 4.0. Source updated 2026-07-12.
- Data status
- estimated — modelled estimates fill country-years the ITU has not directly measured. observed = measured · estimated = filled from partial data · modeled = reconstructed.
- Method
- World Bank metadata for IT.NET.USER.ZS. “Internet user” = used the internet in the last 3 months; denominator = total population.
Fact-check gate: go · generated from Postgres via the importer.