About 54 countries around the world still have the death penalty on their books for ordinary crimes, and roughly 17 of them actually carried out executions in 2025. Another 113 countries have abolished capital punishment entirely, and about 32 more retain it in law but either restrict it to rare wartime offenses or haven’t executed anyone in more than a decade. So while more than two-thirds of the world’s nations have moved away from the death penalty in law or in practice, the number of recorded executions in 2025 hit its highest point in over 44 years.
The Four Categories Countries Fall Into
International monitors sort the world’s countries into four groups when tracking capital punishment.1Death Penalty Information Center. Abolitionist and Retentionist Countries
Fully abolitionist countries have removed the death penalty from their legal systems entirely. No one can be sentenced to death for any crime. This is the largest group, at 113 nations.
Abolitionist for ordinary crimes describes nine countries that have ended capital punishment for regular criminal offenses but kept it for exceptional situations, usually crimes committed during a declared war or under military jurisdiction.
Abolitionist in practice covers about 23 countries that still have the death penalty written into their criminal codes but haven’t executed anyone in at least 10 years. Sentences may still be handed down, but they aren’t carried out.
Retentionist countries, roughly 54 of them, keep the death penalty and use it for ordinary crimes like murder, drug trafficking, or terrorism.2World Coalition Against the Death Penalty. World Coalition Against the Death Penalty
Which Countries Actually Carry Out Executions
Even within the retentionist group, actual executions are heavily concentrated. In 2024, Amnesty International recorded at least 1,518 executions across just 15 countries, a 32 percent increase over the year before. In 2025, that figure climbed to at least 2,707 known executions in 17 countries, the highest recorded total in over 44 years.3Amnesty International. Death Penalty in 2025 – Facts and Figures
Those figures exclude China, which is believed to execute thousands of people each year but treats the data as a state secret. Because no independent verification is possible, monitoring organizations list China’s totals separately rather than folding uncertain estimates into global counts.4Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide. The Worlds Top Executioner – Capital Punishment in China
After China, the countries with the highest known execution totals in 2024 were Iran (at least 972), Saudi Arabia (at least 345), Iraq (at least 63), and Yemen (at least 38). The United States is the most visible retentionist nation in the Western Hemisphere, and it was the only country in the Americas to carry out executions in 2025.3Amnesty International. Death Penalty in 2025 – Facts and Figures At the U.S. federal level alone, more than 40 offenses can carry a death sentence, ranging from first-degree murder to espionage, genocide, and certain terrorism-related crimes.5Death Penalty Information Center. Federal Laws Providing for the Death Penalty
Countries That Have Fully Abolished the Death Penalty
The 113 fully abolitionist countries span every inhabited continent and include vastly different legal traditions, from common law systems to civil law frameworks to religious legal codes that have undergone secular reform.6Amnesty International. Death Penalty
France abolished capital punishment in 1981, and Germany’s Basic Law has prohibited it since 1949, making Western Europe one of the earliest regions to reject the practice entirely.7France Diplomatie. Abolition of the Death Penalty Colombia’s constitution declares that “there shall be no death penalty,” embedding abolition at the highest legal level.8Constitute. Colombia 1991 Constitution Rwanda abolished the penalty in 2007 as part of post-genocide legal reform. Australia and New Zealand represent Oceania.
More than 85 of these 113 countries formally ended the practice after 1976, so the global shift is relatively recent and accelerating.9Death Penalty Information Center. Countries That Have Abolished the Death Penalty Since 1976 Recent additions follow a familiar pattern of countries that stopped executing years ago eventually writing the change into law. Gambia abolished the death penalty for murder, treason, and other offenses against the state, and Vietnam removed it for eight crimes including drug transportation in 2025.
Countries That Keep It Only on Paper
Two categories sit between full abolition and active use. Both look like “no death penalty” from a distance, but neither actually rules out an execution.
Nine countries reserve capital punishment for wartime or military offenses only. Brazil is a clear example. Its constitution states there shall be no death penalty “except in case of declared war,” and its Military Criminal Code lists eligible wartime offenses including betrayal, espionage, and cowardice. Brazil hasn’t executed anyone since 1855, making its military provision almost entirely symbolic.10World Coalition Against the Death Penalty. Facts and Figures 2024
About 23 more countries are classified as abolitionist in practice. The death penalty remains in their criminal codes, but no one has been executed in at least 10 years. Russia’s last execution was in 1996, and a moratorium declared by its Constitutional Court has held since then. South Korea hasn’t executed anyone since December 1997, though no official moratorium has ever been declared there.11World Coalition Against the Death Penalty. After More Than 20 Years Without Executions, a Trend Toward an Official Moratorium Algeria and Morocco fall into this group too. Judges can still hand down death sentences and people can sit on death row indefinitely, but the executive branch or prison authorities do not carry the sentences out.
This status isn’t always permanent. Pakistan was considered abolitionist in practice for years until the 2014 attack on Army Public School in Peshawar prompted the government to lift its moratorium and resume executions. An informal moratorium can evaporate quickly when political conditions shift, which is why human rights organizations push for formal legislative abolition rather than relying on executive restraint.
What Crimes Qualify for the Death Penalty
In retentionist countries, the range of offenses that can carry a death sentence is wider than international law contemplates. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ratified by 175 countries, permits capital punishment “only for the most serious crimes,” which UN bodies interpret narrowly to mean intentional killing.12OHCHR. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Drug trafficking, property crimes, and economic offenses fall outside that definition.
Dozens of countries impose death sentences for them anyway. In 2025, a record 1,212 people were executed worldwide for drug-related offenses, accounting for over 46 percent of all known executions globally. Thirty-six countries retained the death penalty for drug crimes that year.13Death Penalty Information Center. New Harm Reduction International Report – Drug-Related Executions Worldwide Reached Record High
Iran alone accounted for nearly 80 percent of those drug-related executions, putting at least 955 people to death for narcotics offenses. Saudi Arabia executed 240 people for drug crimes, 67 percent of its total. Singapore executed 15 people for drug offenses, 88 percent of its total. Indonesia didn’t execute anyone for drugs in 2025 but imposed 143 new drug-related death sentences. Algeria and the Maldives both enacted new legislation in 2025 making the death penalty available for certain drug offenses.
Article 6 of the ICCPR also creates two absolute prohibitions that apply everywhere: the death penalty cannot be imposed for crimes committed by anyone under 18, and it cannot be carried out on pregnant women. The prohibition on executing juvenile offenders has been recognized as a norm of customary international law so fundamental that no country may derogate from it, even in wartime.14Office of Justice Programs. Exclusion of Child Offenders From the Death Penalty Under General International Law
Where the Numbers Are Moving
The direction of the overall trend is unambiguous. The list of full abolitionists has risen steadily from fewer than 30 in the mid-1970s to 113 today. The UN General Assembly voted 130–32 in 2024 in favor of a resolution calling for a worldwide moratorium on executions, with 22 countries abstaining. Each time that vote has been held since 2007, the majority in favor has grown. More countries abolish the death penalty each decade than adopt it.6Amnesty International. Death Penalty
The execution numbers, though, tell a more complicated story. The record 2,707 known executions in 2025 show that the countries still carrying out death sentences are doing so more aggressively, not less. A handful of nations account for the overwhelming majority of state-sanctioned deaths, and in those countries, the scope of capital crimes is expanding rather than narrowing. The world has split into a large majority that has rejected the death penalty and a small minority that is doubling down on it.