Freedom Score

Description: Freedom House’s freedom score captures the extent of free and fair elections, political pluralism and participation, a functioning government, freedom of expression and association, the rule of law, and personal autonomy. Higher scores indicate more freedom.
Data source: Freedom House (2026) – processed by Our World in Data
Date range: 2002-2025
Last updated: 2026-03-23
Next expected update: 2027-03-23
Managed by: Lucas Rodés-Guirao

This score, produced by Freedom House, is useful if you are interested in big and small differences in freedom, want scores for almost all countries, and prefer a definition of democracy that especially focuses on political and civil freedoms. For data that focuses on big differences in political systems or has a narrower or broader understanding of democracy, other sources will be more useful. You can explore these alternatives in our Key Democracy Charts and Democracy Data Explorer.
The score is based mainly on assessments by Freedom House’s country and regional experts, and its own researchers.
It is made up of 10 indicators of political rights (up to 40 points) and 15 indicators of civil liberties (up to 60 points).

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The score is used by Freedom House to classify countries as not free, partly free, or free.

Frequently asked questions

How did Our World in Data process this data?

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

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Data sources

Freedom House – Freedom in the World

The Freedom in the World report is composed of numerical ratings and supporting descriptive texts for 195 countries and 15 territories. External analysts assess 210 countries and territories, using a combination of on-the-ground research, consultations with local contacts, and information from news articles, nongovernmental organizations, governments, and a variety of other sources. Expert advisers and regional specialists then vet the analysts’ conclusions. The final product represents the consensus of the analysts, advisers, and Freedom House staff.

For each country and territory, Freedom in the World analyzes the electoral process, political pluralism and participation, the functioning of the government, freedom of expression and of belief, associational and organizational rights, the rule of law, and personal autonomy and individual rights.

Retrieved on

May 16, 2024

Retrieved from

https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world

Citation

This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data.

House, Freedom. "Freedom in the world. Freedom House." (2021).

How to cite

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Freedom Score”, part of the following publication: Bastian Herre, Lucas Rodés-Guirao, and Esteban Ortiz-Ospina (2013) - “Democracy”. Data adapted from Freedom House. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20261005-103020/grapher/freedom-score-fh.html [online resource] (archived on October 5, 2026).

How to cite this data

If you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

Freedom House (2026) – processed by Our World in Data

Full citation

Freedom House (2026) – processed by Our World in Data. “Freedom Score” [dataset]. Freedom House, “Freedom in the World” [original data]. Retrieved October 5, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20261005-103020/grapher/freedom-score-fh.html (archived on October 5, 2026).

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All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

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