Governments allocate public resources across a wide range of activities—from administering justice and maintaining infrastructure to delivering healthcare, education, and social protection. While the level of public provision of goods and services varies significantly between countries depending on policy choices, priorities and political systems and traditions, the general government expenditures capture the totality of financial commitments across all levels of government. These expenditures not only indicate current policy priorities and the structure of service provision, but also provide a basis for assessing the effectiveness and sustainability of public action. For policy makers, understanding the composition and evolution of public spending is key to designing responsive, equitable, and efficient public policies that meet citizens’ needs.
General government expenditures across the OECD averaged 42.6% of GDP in 2023 (Figure 15.1), confirming a declining trend after the 2020 peak at 48.3% of GDP due to the large-scale fiscal stimuluses deployed by governments to counteract the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on their economies (Figure 15.2). However, levels remain above 2019 ones for most OECD countries, except for Norway (-4.3 p.p.), Denmark (-3p.p.), Australia (-3.0 p.p.), Ireland (-1.1 p.p), Sweden (-0.3 p.p.) and Portugal (-0.2 p.p.) and Switzerland (-0.1 p.p.). Overall, between 2019 and 2023, public spending as a percentage of GDP decreased in 7 of 38 OECD countries, with Italy (-3.4 p.p.) and Hungary (-2.3 p.p.) reporting the largest decreases. Between 2023 and 2024, public spending decreased as a share of GDP in 9 out of 28 OECD countries for which 2024 data are available.
On average public spending in OECD countries that are also EU members was at 49.3% of GDP in 2024, above the OECD average, with Finland (57.5%), France (57.2%) and Austria (56.3%) displaying the highest levels. If these numbers still indicate a reduction compared to 2020 and 2021 figures, the level of public spending in EU countries has been influenced by the fiscal measures taken to mitigate the impact of increasing energy prices in 2023 and 2024 (Eurostat, 2025).
In 2023, general government spending per capita averaged USD 22 800 at purchasing power parity (PPP) across OECD countries (Figure 15.3), ranging from USD 5 687 PPP in Mexico to USD 65 697 PPP in Luxembourg. Between 2019 and 2023, spending per capita increased on average by USD 4 382 PPP with the largest increases in Norway (USD 22 654 PPP) and Luxembourg (USD 10 305 PPP). Across OECD countries also part of the EU, it increased from USD 22 954 PPP in 2019 to USD 27 305 PPP in 2023, also partly due to the energy prices support in 2023.
