Public and private social expenditure in Iceland
Iceland: Public and private social expenditure was 19.21 Percentage of GDP in 2024. ▲ Rising
Public and private social expenditure in Iceland, 1990–2024
Source: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Measured in Percentage of GDP.
Analysis
Iceland recorded 19.21 Percentage of GDP for public and private social expenditure in 2024.
That represents a change of up 3.1% on the previous year and up 9.3% over ten years.
Over the whole period, public and private social expenditure in Iceland peaked at 23.07 Percentage of GDP in 2020 and was at its lowest, 13.29 Percentage of GDP, in 1990.
Iceland ranks 22nd of 33 countries on this measure, in the middle of the range.
The long-run direction has been consistently rising across the 35 years of available data.
Averages by decade
| Decade | Average | Lowest | Highest | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1990s | 14.22 Percentage of GDP | 13.29 Percentage of GDP | 14.69 Percentage of GDP | 10 |
| 2000s | 15.9 Percentage of GDP | 14.46 Percentage of GDP | 18.49 Percentage of GDP | 10 |
| 2010s | 17.62 Percentage of GDP | 16.55 Percentage of GDP | 18.85 Percentage of GDP | 10 |
| 2020s | 20.63 Percentage of GDP | 18.63 Percentage of GDP | 23.07 Percentage of GDP | 5 |
Countries ranked near Iceland
More social development data for Iceland
- Refugees under the mandate of the UNHCR by country or territory of asy 8,459 (2025)
- Refugees under the mandate of the UNHCR by country or territory of ori 0 (2025)
- Political rights rating fh 1 (2025)
- Democracy lexical 1 (2025)
- Political rights rating fh, annual growth rate 0 % change on previous year (2025)
- Political rights rating fh, gaps filled 1 (2025)
- Refugees under the mandate of the UNHCR by country or territory of 0 units per person (2025)
- Refugees under the mandate of the UNHCR by country or territory of 0 (2025)
- Refugees under the mandate of the UNHCR by country or territory of 0.0216 units per person (2025)
- Refugees under the mandate of the UNHCR by country or territory of 0 units per US$ of GDP (2025)
Frequently asked questions
- What is public and private social expenditure in Iceland?
- Public and private social expenditure in Iceland was 19.21 Percentage of GDP in 2024, according to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
- What is the highest public and private social expenditure recorded in Iceland?
- The highest recorded value was 23.07 Percentage of GDP in 2020.
- What is the lowest public and private social expenditure recorded in Iceland?
- The lowest recorded value was 13.29 Percentage of GDP in 1990.
- How does Iceland rank for public and private social expenditure?
- Iceland ranks 22nd out of 33 countries with data for 2024.
- Is public and private social expenditure rising or falling in Iceland?
- Over the last ten years it is up 9.3%. The long-run trend across the full record is rising.
- Where does this Iceland data come from?
- The figures come from Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, published as part of Public and private social expenditure. Statizoid updates them automatically from the source API.
Download this data
CSV · JSON — 35 observations, free to reuse under OECD Terms and Conditions (attribution required).
About this data
The OECD Social Expenditure Database (SOCX) has been developed in order to serve a growing need for indicators of social policy. It includes reliable and internationally comparable statistics on public and mandatory and voluntary private social expenditure at programme level. SOCX provides a unique tool for monitoring trends in aggregate social expenditure and analysing changes in its composition. It covers 38 OECD countries and some accession countries for the period 1980-2021/23 and estimates for aggregates for 2022-24. A Social Expenditure Update can be found under www.oecd.org/en/data/datasets/social-expenditure-database-socx.htm. The main social policy areas are as follows: Old age, Survivors, Incapacity-related benefits, Health, Family, Active labor market programmes, Unemployment, Housing, and Other social policy areas. This version also includes estimates of net total social spending for 2021 for 38 OECD countries. SOCX aggregated data as well as sources and methodology are described in The OECD SOCX Manual – 2019 edition- A guide to the OECD Social Expenditure Database.