Average IQ by Country

Estimated national average IQ for 79 countries, compiled from academic studies (Rindermann; Lynn & Becker) blended with PISA 2009–2024 results. Click a column header to sort.

Read this before the table. National IQ estimates are among the most contested numbers in social science. Samples behind some countries are small or unrepresentative; scores track schooling quality, childhood health and test familiarity; and the entire spread across all 79 countries is 42 points — about the same as the ordinary range found inside any single classroom. These figures describe measured test performance under unequal conditions, not innate ability of populations.
# Country Avg. IQ (est.)
1 🇨🇳 China 113
2 🇸🇬 Singapore 113
3 🇭🇰 Hong Kong 110
4 🇲🇴 Macao 110
5 🇹🇼 Taiwan 110
6 🇯🇵 Japan 109
7 🇰🇷 South Korea 109
8 🇨🇦 Canada 106
9 🇪🇪 Estonia 106
10 🇫🇮 Finland 106
11 🇳🇿 New Zealand 105
12 🇦🇺 Australia 104
13 🇳🇱 Netherlands 104
14 🇨🇭 Switzerland 104
15 🇬🇧 United Kingdom 104
16 🇧🇪 Belgium 103
17 🇩🇪 Germany 103
18 🇵🇱 Poland 103
19 🇸🇮 Slovenia 103
20 🇸🇪 Sweden 103
21 🇦🇹 Austria 102
22 🇩🇰 Denmark 102
23 🇫🇷 France 102
24 🇮🇪 Ireland 102
25 🇳🇴 Norway 102
26 🇺🇸 United States 102
27 🇻🇳 Vietnam 102
28 🇮🇸 Iceland 101
29 🇮🇹 Italy 101
30 🇵🇹 Portugal 100
31 🇪🇸 Spain 100
32 🇷🇺 Russia 99
33 🇮🇱 Israel 97
34 🇺🇦 Ukraine 97
35 🇬🇷 Greece 96
36 🇲🇲 Myanmar 94
37 🇿🇦 South Africa 94
38 🇹🇷 Turkey 94
39 🇧🇲 Bermuda 93
40 🇮🇷 Iran 93
41 🇲🇾 Malaysia 93
42 🇨🇷 Costa Rica 92
43 🇷🇴 Romania 92
44 🇳🇬 Nigeria 91
45 🇦🇷 Argentina 90
46 🇰🇭 Cambodia 90
47 🇨🇲 Cameroon 90
48 🇨🇺 Cuba 90
49 🇲🇪 Montenegro 90
50 🇹🇭 Thailand 90
51 🇬🇪 Georgia 89
52 🇲🇽 Mexico 89
53 🇮🇳 India 88
54 🇨🇮 Ivory Coast 88
55 🇪🇨 Ecuador 87
56 🇪🇬 Egypt 87
57 🇵🇰 Pakistan 87
58 🇻🇪 Venezuela 87
59 🇧🇷 Brazil 86
60 🇨🇴 Colombia 86
61 🇲🇦 Morocco 86
62 🇩🇿 Algeria 85
63 🇧🇩 Bangladesh 85
64 🇧🇴 Bolivia 85
65 🇮🇩 Indonesia 84
66 🇯🇲 Jamaica 83
67 🇵🇭 Philippines 83
68 🇦🇫 Afghanistan 82
69 🇹🇩 Chad 79
70 🇽🇰 Kosovo 79
71 🇸🇨 Seychelles 79
72 🇸🇩 Sudan 79
73 🇹🇱 East Timor 78
74 🇵🇬 Papua New Guinea 78
75 🇰🇲 Comoros 77
76 🇧🇫 Burkina Faso 74
77 🇸🇾 Syria 74
78 🇧🇮 Burundi 72
79 🇳🇪 Niger 71

Source: aggregation by worlddata.info (retrieved July 2026), blending Rindermann (2007), Lynn & Becker (2019) and regional studies with PISA 2009–2024; countries with unreliable underlying samples excluded. Values rounded to whole points.

Why these numbers are controversial

Most of the underlying data descends from compilations by Richard Lynn and collaborators, which have drawn sustained academic criticism: some national values rested on a handful of small, non-representative samples (children in a single school district, refugee populations, decades-old studies), and several were extrapolated from neighboring countries. Later compilations — including the blend shown here — improve on this by weighting large standardized assessments like PISA and dropping the weakest samples, but the country-to-country comparability problem never fully goes away.

The strongest evidence that these gaps are environmental is how fast they close. Measured averages in many countries rose by roughly three points per decade across the 20th century (the Flynn effect), and countries that rapidly expanded schooling and childhood nutrition saw their estimates climb in step. Numbers this mobile cannot be read as fixed properties of populations.

What actually moves a national average

  • Years and quality of schooling — each additional year of education adds measurable points; test-style reasoning is substantially a trained skill.
  • Childhood health — nutrition, iodine and iron status, infectious disease burden and lead exposure all leave detectable marks on cognitive test scores.
  • Test familiarity — populations that grow up on standardized multiple-choice formats score higher on them, independent of reasoning ability.
  • Sampling — who got tested: urban students vs. national cross-sections can differ by 10 points within the same country.

For the same caveat-first analysis inside the United States, see average IQ by state — a 10-point spread with the same education-and-economics story behind it.

Curious where you sit on the scale these averages are drawn from? The distribution inside every country is far wider than the differences between countries — take the free test or explore what each score means.

Every country's internal range is huge — where are you in it?

35 matrix puzzles · 25 minutes · instant score with percentile — free, no email, no tricks.

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Frequently asked questions

Which country has the highest average IQ?

In this compilation, East Asian countries and city-states top the table — China and Singapore (113), followed by Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan (110), Japan and South Korea (109). Rankings differ between sources because each blends different studies, years and normalizations; treat the ordering as approximate.

What is the average IQ in the United States?

About 102 in this dataset (98–100 in others, depending on normalization). By definition the US population averages 100 on tests normed within the US — cross-country tables use a common international baseline instead, which shifts the numbers.

Do these differences mean some nations are innately smarter?

No — that reading is not supported by the evidence. Measured national averages track education quality and years of schooling, childhood health and nutrition, test familiarity, and how representative the samples were. Averages also move fast: several countries have gained the equivalent of 10+ IQ points within a couple of generations (the Flynn effect), far too quickly for genetics to be the explanation.

Why do different websites show different numbers for the same country?

Because the underlying patchwork differs: Lynn & Becker's academic compilations, PISA-based estimates and online-test aggregates use different samples, years and scale anchors. Values for well-studied countries are reasonably stable; values for countries with sparse data can swing by 5–10 points between compilations.