Internet users by country· by share of population online
Three countries report a fully connected population: United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, all at 100.0%. At the other end sits Burundi, where 8.6% of people use the internet. Across 182 countries and territories the world is 71.2% online, which still leaves about 2.3 billion people who do not use the internet at all. That offline share, 28.8% of humanity, is the number this page is really about, and most of it sits in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. All figures are for 2024.
What counts as a user is broad on purpose: the ITU definition is anyone who went online in the past three months, from any device. The share is measured against the entire population, newborns included, so a country reporting 100.0% has reached saturation, not a literal headcount. For many countries these are ITU model estimates rather than fresh surveys, and the ranking year is 2024: too few countries have reported 2025 yet for an honest world list.
Where the world is online, and where it is not
The deep color marks the countries where nearly everyone uses the internet: the Gulf states, Northern Europe, the richest parts of East Asia. The pale band across Central Africa is the other story, the last stretch of the offline world. The map and the ranked list beside it move together; the tiles above switch the metric.
Tap a country to read its figure.
Natural Earth 10m · Crimea shown as Ukraine · source: World Bank, CC BY 4.0
Every country, from most connected down
The complete table, highest share of internet users first. Click a column to sort. Beside the online share sit the offline share, the change against the previous year in percentage points, and the distance from the world average.
| # ▲ | Country | Online | Offline | Δ year | vs world |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  United Arab Emirates | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0 pp | +28.8 pp |
| 2 |  Saudi Arabia | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0 pp | +28.8 pp |
| 3 |  Bahrain | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0 pp | +28.8 pp |
| 4 |  Denmark | 99.8% | 0.2% | +1.0 pp | +28.6 pp |
| 5 |  Kuwait | 99.7% | 0.3% | 0.0 pp | +28.5 pp |
| 6 |  Monaco | 99.0% | 1.0% | +0.1 pp | +27.8 pp |
| 7 |  Norway | 99.0% | 1.0% | 0.0 pp | +27.8 pp |
| 8 |  Luxembourg | 98.8% | 1.2% | -0.5 pp | +27.6 pp |
| 9 |  Liechtenstein | 98.3% | 1.7% | +0.2 pp | +27.1 pp |
| 10 |  Iceland | 98.2% | 1.8% | +0.3 pp | +27.0 pp |
| 11 |  Qatar | 98.1% | 1.9% | -0.1 pp | +26.9 pp |
| 12 |  Malaysia | 98.0% | 2.0% | +0.3 pp | +26.8 pp |
| 13 |  South Korea | 97.9% | 2.1% | +0.5 pp | +26.7 pp |
| 14 |  San Marino | 97.4% | 2.6% | +0.1 pp | +26.2 pp |
| 15 |  Switzerland | 97.3% | 2.7% | 0.0 pp | +26.1 pp |
What "internet users" really counts here
This ranking uses the share of each country's population that used the internet in the past three months, from any device and any location: the ITU definition that national statistics offices report against. The World Bank republishes those figures as indicator IT.NET.USER.ZS, and that single open dataset is the source behind every number on this page. Where a country has no recent survey, the ITU fills the gap with a model estimate, so each figure is a careful estimate of basic use across the whole population, not a count of subscriptions or connections.
The spread is the story. At the top, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain report 100.0% of their people online, and 7 countries sit at 99% or higher: the Gulf states and Northern Europe have simply finished connecting. At the bottom, Burundi is at 8.6%, 11 countries remain under 20%, and 17 of the twenty least connected are in Sub-Saharan Africa. The United States sits at 94.7%, rank 29 of 182. One wrinkle worth noticing: the world average of 71.2% runs well below the typical country's 82.2%, because the offline population is concentrated in a handful of very large, mostly poorer countries.
Be careful about what the number does not say. It counts use, not quality: one person on a shared phone with a sliver of prepaid data counts the same as a household on fiber. It says nothing about speed, price, or whether the connection is filtered. And the top of the table barely moves for a mechanical reason: with newborns in the denominator, no country can push far past the high nineties, so the real motion lives in the middle and at the bottom of the list.
Five numbers worth remembering
The same dataset, squeezed into the facts people actually retell.
Where does a country stand?
A share means more when it belongs to a place you know.
Frequently asked questions
How many people use the internet?
About 5.8 billion people, or 71.2% of the world's population, used the internet in 2024 by the ITU definition: anyone who went online in the past three months, from any device. Twenty years earlier the share was 15.6%. The figures come from national surveys pooled with ITU model estimates and republished by the World Bank.
How many people do not use the internet?
About 2.3 billion people, 28.8% of humanity, did not use the internet in 2024. The offline population is heavily concentrated: 17 of the twenty least connected countries are in Sub-Saharan Africa, and large parts of South Asia remain offline as well, mostly for reasons of cost, coverage and literacy rather than choice.
Which country is the most connected in the world?
United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain all report 100.0% of their people online in 2024, and 7 countries sit at 99% or higher. Because the share is measured against the whole population, infants included, a figure like that means saturation: essentially everyone old enough to go online does. Wealthy Gulf states and Northern Europe dominate the top of the table.
Which country has the least internet access?
Burundi has the world's lowest share of internet users, 8.6% in 2024, with Uganda close by at 8.9%. In total 11 countries remain under 20% online, almost all of them in Sub-Saharan Africa. Note that the indicator measures use, not infrastructure: a country can have mobile coverage that most people cannot afford to use.
How is an internet user defined?
By the ITU standard behind this dataset, an internet user is anyone who used the internet in the past three months, from any device and any location: a phone, a shared computer or an internet cafe all count equally. The share is calculated against the entire population, including small children, and where recent survey data is missing the ITU supplies a model estimate. It is a measure of basic use, not of connection quality.
Why is the data from 2024 and not 2025?
Because 2024 is the latest year with broad coverage: 182 countries and territories. Surveys and ITU estimates for 2025 trickle in over one to two years, and ranking the world on the handful of early reporters would be misleading. The page carries the 2024 vintage until the next release reaches meaningful coverage.
Cite this page
CC BY 4.0Our compilation on this page — the figures as arranged, ranked and dated here — is published under CC BY 4.0. Reuse it anywhere, including commercially, with a link back. The underlying data belongs to the organizations credited below.
Us, by Numbers. "Internet Users by Country: Share of Population Online." https://usbynumbers.com
Sources & further reading
Every figure here is built on one open dataset: the World Bank's "Individuals using the Internet" (IT.NET.USER.ZS), which republishes ITU estimates, released under CC BY 4.0.
- World Bank · Individuals using the Internet (IT.NET.USER.ZS)primary dataset
- ITU DataHub · individuals using the internetsource agency
- Our World in Data · the Internetsecondary reading
- ITU · Manual for Measuring ICT Access and Use by Households and Individualsmethodology