Countries With the Highest GDP per Capita, and Why They Top the List

Liechtenstein has the highest GDP per capita in the world at about $226,800 per person, followed by Luxembourg (about $158,700) and Ireland (about $140,200), according to the International Monetary Fund’s estimates for 2026 in current US dollars. Switzerland, Iceland, Singapore, Norway, the United States, Denmark and the Netherlands complete the top ten. Nine of the ten have fewer than 20 million people, and several owe part of their figure to how GDP is measured rather than to how much residents earn.

The table ranks sovereign IMF members only. Macau, a special administrative region of China, would sit just below the Netherlands at about $76,400, and Australia is the first country outside the top ten at about $75,600. Nominal GDP per capita is simply a country’s total output in a year divided by its resident population and converted to dollars at market exchange rates, so a currency swing can move a country several places without anyone’s living standard changing. The four causes below explain almost the entire list.

Microstates With Cross-Border Commuters: Liechtenstein and Luxembourg

The two leaders share one quirk: much of their output is produced by people who live in another country. GDP counts everything made inside the border, but the per capita figure divides it only by residents, so a daily inflow of foreign workers inflates the result.

Liechtenstein, a doubly landlocked principality of 41,389 people and just over 160 km² between Austria and Switzerland, only entered the IMF tables recently: it became a member on 21 October 2024. It has been in a customs union with Switzerland since 1924, uses the Swiss franc and joined the European Economic Area in 1995. Over the past half-century it turned from a mainly farming state into one of the most industrialised countries in the world. Its largest employer, Hilti, makes power tools and fastening systems, and other firms produce precision instruments, dental products and pharmaceuticals. Many of those jobs are filled by commuters from Switzerland, Austria and Germany.

Luxembourg shows the effect even more clearly. Its labour market has about 445,000 jobs, held by some 120,000 Luxembourgers, 120,000 foreign residents and 205,000 cross-border commuters from France, Belgium and Germany. Almost half the workforce therefore produces output in Luxembourg but is counted in the population of a neighbour. Banking is the largest sector, and the country specialises in administering investment funds sold across borders; it listed the first Eurobonds on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange in 1963 and hosts the European Investment Bank. With 693,916 residents in 2026, it is one of Europe’s least populated countries. More on both states is in our Liechtenstein country guide and Luxembourg country guide.

Profits Booked in Dublin: Ireland’s 2015 Leap

Ireland’s figure is the clearest case of measured output running ahead of local income. In a release on 12 July 2016, the Central Statistics Office reported that Irish GDP had grown by 26.3% in 2015 (later revised to 24.6%). The economist Paul Krugman called it “leprechaun economics”. The jump came from multinational companies moving intellectual property and its profits into Ireland; by early 2018 economists could confirm Apple as the main source, in what has been described as the largest single profit-shifting restructuring on record. In August 2016 the European Commission ruled that Apple’s Irish tax arrangement was illegal state aid and ordered Ireland to recover €13 billion.

Because GDP overstates what stays in the country, Ireland introduced “modified gross national income”, or GNI*, in 2017. It strips out depreciation on foreign-owned intellectual property and leased aircraft and the income of companies that redomiciled to Ireland. The Central Statistics Office’s restated figures showed 2017 GDP at 162% of GNI*, and the OECD has published Irish public debt measured against GNI* as well as GDP. The IMF’s own Finance & Development magazine estimated in June 2018 that eight “pass-through” economies, among them Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Singapore, hosted more than 85% of the world’s investment in special purpose entities, which are often set up for tax reasons.

Ports and Pass-Through Finance: Singapore and the Netherlands

Singapore and the Netherlands combine that pass-through finance with a much older source of wealth: trade. Singapore began as a British trading post founded by Stamford Raffles in 1819. It became independent in 1965 after being expelled from the Malaysian federation, with no natural resources and no hinterland, and grew into one of the Four Asian Tigers through entrepôt trade, refining and re-exporting goods, and heavy inflows of foreign investment. Its state investment company, Temasek Holdings, holds majority stakes in firms such as Singapore Airlines and Singtel. When prices are adjusted for purchasing power, Singapore ranks second in the IMF’s 2026 table at about $173,700, behind only Liechtenstein.

The Netherlands, with over 18 million people the only country in this top ten apart from the United States with more than 10 million, rests on the Port of Rotterdam, Europe’s largest seaport. Rotterdam was the busiest port in the world by cargo tonnage from 1962 until Singapore overtook it in 2004. Goods for much of western Europe arrive there, which lifts Dutch output per head through logistics, refining and trade services.

Oil, Gas, Fish and Geothermal Power: Norway and Iceland

Norway’s wealth dates from 1969, when Phillips Petroleum discovered the Ekofisk field in the North Sea about 320 km southwest of Stavanger, the first oil find after more than 200 exploration wells had been drilled there. Production began in 1971 and is planned to continue until 2048 or later. The government invests the surplus in the Government Pension Fund Global, set up in 1990, which held more than US$2.2 trillion as of July 2026, equal to about 1.5% of the value of the world’s listed companies and over US$390,000 per Norwegian citizen. It is the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world.

Iceland’s resources are fish, cheap renewable power and scenery. Fishing grew into a large industry after the 1880s, and 99.9% of the island’s electricity now comes from renewable sources, chiefly geothermal and hydropower plants such as Kárahnjúkar (690 MW). That power supports aluminium smelting, which reached a capacity of more than 850,000 tonnes a year in 2019. Tourism, which boomed after the 2008–2011 financial crisis, made up 42% of exports in 2017, ahead of seafood (17%) and aluminium (16%). With roughly 395,000 residents and a GDP of about US$35 billion in 2025, a strong tourist season or króna moves Iceland’s per capita figure sharply.

High-Value Industry at Scale: Switzerland, Denmark and the United States

The remaining three rank high without commuters, tax-driven accounting or oil on anything like the same scale. Switzerland, with about 9 million people, combines banking with some of the world’s most competitive manufacturers: the drug companies Novartis and Roche, food giant Nestlé, and engineering firms such as ABB and Stadler Rail. Denmark, with 5,932,654 people at the start of 2023, has a service-dominated economy in which about 11% of employees work in manufacturing; its best-known company, Novo Nordisk of Bagsværd, sells diabetes and obesity medicines in around 170 countries.

The United States is the outlier. With more than 300 million people it is by far the most populous country in the top ten, and its $94,430 per person comes from a broad economy rather than one sector. Its figure is not driven by cross-border commuters or foreign-owned intellectual property, and it rests on finance, technology, health care, energy and farming together. Its presence shows that the ranking is not only a club of microstates and tax-efficient financial centres; for total output rather than output per person, see our ranking of countries by GDP.

Who Drops Out: Qatar, Monaco and the Purchasing-Power View

Qatar generally ranked among the ten richest countries in the World Bank, United Nations and IMF tables for 2015 and 2016, so many older lists still include it. Oil and gas account for more than 60% of its GDP and roughly 85% of export earnings, and it shares the South Pars/North Dome field with Iran, the largest natural gas field in the world. Its IMF 2026 estimate of about $68,100, however, places it around 15th among sovereign states, while the World Bank’s 2025 figure of about $72,500 is higher. Its position moves with gas prices and with how quickly its population, most of whom are foreign workers, grows.

Monaco is missing for a different reason: it is not an IMF member. The World Bank, which does cover it, puts Monaco’s GDP per capita at about $288,000 for 2024, higher than any country in the table. The British territories of Bermuda (about $142,300 in 2024) and the Cayman Islands (about $104,300) would also rank in the top ten if dependencies were included; both, like Ireland and Luxembourg, are cited by researchers as jurisdictions whose figures are distorted by corporate tax planning. Measured by purchasing power parity instead, the IMF’s 2026 order changes to Liechtenstein, Singapore, Ireland and Luxembourg, with Norway and Qatar close behind, because prices in Switzerland, Iceland and Denmark are among the highest anywhere.