Originally published on The Daily Flare.
The Gulf states and the Nordics top the ranking of internet users by country in 2026, with Bahrain, Kuwait and the UAE reporting effectively universal internet penetration.
Internet users by country is one of the most revealing ways to measure how far the digital age has actually spread. Counting heads rather than subscriptions, the latest figures show a world that is nearly three-quarters online — but with a stark split between the small states that have wired up every resident and the countries where only a fraction of the population can get online. The data comes from the International Telecommunication Union, the United Nations agency that sets the global standard for these statistics, compiled into the table below from the latest available national reports (2024–2025).
Before diving in: this ranking mixes 2024 and 2025 observations, because not every country's latest household survey is from the same year. The figures are the most recent available for each country, and where the data is shaky it is flagged in the table.
Internet users by country: Gulf states and Nordics lead the global ranking
The top of the table belongs to two clear blocs. Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates all report penetration of 100 percent — rounded survey estimates that mean, in practice, more than 99.5 percent of the population has used the internet in the last three months. Qatar, at 98.1 percent, keeps the Gulf's dominance going. These are young, wealthy, highly urbanised countries where smartphone ownership is near-total and state governments have pushed digital services aggressively.
The second bloc is the Nordics. Denmark sits at 99.8 percent, Norway at 99 percent and Iceland at 98.2 percent, with Finland (94.1 percent) and Sweden (95.8 percent) close behind. Europe's north has been the continent's most connected region for years, combining high incomes with remote populations that adopted the internet early out of necessity.
East Asia holds its own through South Korea (97.9 percent), one of the earliest national broadband leaders, alongside Taiwan (96.7 percent), Singapore (94.4 percent) and, notably, Brunei (96.3 percent). Western Europe clusters in the mid-90s: Switzerland (97.3 percent), Ireland (97.2 percent), the Netherlands (97 percent) and Belgium (95.8 percent). The United States reports 94.7 percent and the United Kingdom 95.5 percent — solid, but trailing the leaders. One figure stands out as an outlier: France, at 88.7 percent, sits well below its neighbours, a reminder that big, wealthy countries can still have real adoption gaps.
Chile (95.6 percent) leads the Americas in the top 20, ahead of Canada (94.4 percent) and the United States. Australia (96.1 percent) is the highest-ranked country from Oceania. Several micro-states appear high in the ranking — Monaco (99 percent) and San Marino (97.4 percent) — but their populations are so small that near-universal coverage is an easier feat.
| # | Country | Penetration | Data year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bahrain | 100%* | 2024 |
| 2 | Kuwait | 100%* | 2025 |
| 3 | United Arab Emirates | 100%* | 2024 |
| 4 | Saudi Arabia | 100%** | 2026 |
| 5 | Denmark | 99.8% | 2024 |
| 6 | Luxembourg | 99.1% | 2025 |
| 7 | Monaco | 99% | 2024 |
| 8 | Norway | 99% | 2024 |
| 9 | Iceland | 98.2% | 2024 |
| 10 | Qatar | 98.1% | 2024 |
| 11 | South Korea | 97.9% | 2024 |
| 12 | San Marino | 97.4% | 2024 |
| 13 | Switzerland | 97.3% | 2025 |
| 14 | Ireland | 97.2% | 2024 |
| 15 | Netherlands | 97% | 2024 |
| 16 | Taiwan | 96.7% | 2024 |
| 17 | Brunei | 96.3% | 2024 |
| 18 | Australia | 96.1% | 2024 |
| 19 | Belgium | 95.8% | 2024 |
| 20 | Chile | 95.6% | 2024 |
The 100% figures are rounded survey estimates — effectively 99.5% or higher, not literally every resident. * Saudi Arabia's "100 (2026)" figure comes from a mid-2026 report rather than the ITU's standard series and is best read as an estimate; the UAE, Bahrain and Kuwait remain the verified Gulf leaders.
Just outside the top 20, Hong Kong and Spain (95.8 percent, 2024) and Sweden (95.8 percent, 2025) tie with Belgium; Jordan and Russia (95.6 percent) tie with Chile. The United Kingdom (95.5 percent), Belarus (95.5 percent) and Oman (95.3 percent) are close behind, followed by Andorra, Canada and Singapore at 94.4 percent and the United States at 94.7 percent. At the very top of the table, comparisons of 99.8 versus 99.1 are noise rather than substance — every country in this bracket should be read as essentially universal.
How the numbers were compiled
The ITU defines "individuals using the internet" as people who accessed the internet in the last three months from any device — computer, mobile phone, games console or digital TV. It measures actual use, not mobile subscriptions or network coverage, which can paint a rosier picture. Most countries' latest published observations are from 2024, with a smaller set of 2025 updates; global totals are ITU 2025 estimates published in November 2025.
Two caveats matter. First, a significant share of country values are ITU estimates rather than fresh survey data, especially for smaller and lower-income countries, and the ITU revises past years when member states submit new figures. Second, national surveys do not all cover the same age ranges — some count only ages 16 to 74, others 15 and up — which adds noise to close comparisons.
Six billion people online, but the divide runs deep
The headline global figure is a genuine milestone: roughly 6 billion people used the internet in 2025, about 74 percent of the world's population, according to the ITU's Facts and Figures 2025 report published in November 2025. That is up from a revised 5.8 billion in 2024 — 240 million new users in a single year. The five-year view is even more striking: from 60 percent in 2020 to 74 percent in 2025, meaning 1.3 billion people came online in five years. The pandemic-era acceleration in connectivity has not reversed.
But 2.2 billion people remain offline, and their distribution is wildly uneven. In high-income countries, 94 percent of people use the internet; in low-income countries, just 23 percent. Ninety-six percent of everyone still offline lives in low- and middle-income countries. Europe and the former Soviet states in the CIS region are nearing the 95 percent universality target, while Africa — at around 36 percent online — is the least connected region on earth by a wide margin. The bottom of the country table tells the same story: Burundi (8.6 percent, 2024), Chad (12.6 percent) and the Central African Republic (13.8 percent) rank among the least connected countries in the world.
The divides run inside countries too. Eighty-five percent of people in urban areas are online compared with 58 percent in rural areas. Seventy-seven percent of men use the internet versus 71 percent of women. And 82 percent of 15-to-24-year-olds are online against 72 percent of the rest of the population. If you are young, urban and male, you are far more likely to be part of the connected world — a pattern that holds almost everywhere.
What the 2026 ranking actually tells us
Three conclusions stand out from the internet users by country data. First, universal connectivity is a solved problem for wealthy, compact states — the Gulf monarchies and the Nordics prove that money plus small, urbanised populations gets everyone online. Second, for large economies the job is mostly done but not finished: the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany (93.5 percent) are in the mid-90s, while France's 88.7 percent shows that even rich countries can lag when adoption stalls. Third, the real story is no longer at the top of the table at all. The 74-percent global average hides a world where a child born in Burundi and a child born in Bahrain face opposite realities of access.
On current trends the next billion people to come online will be younger, poorer and more rural than the last billion — and far harder to reach. That is why so much of the future of connectivity now rests not with national carriers but with the infrastructure race: undersea cables, terrestrial fibre and the satellite constellations competing to wire the places the table's leaders never had to worry about.
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