Switzerland, Singapore and Hong Kong took the most competitive economies in the world in 2025, a ranking prepared by the Swiss-based Institute for Management Development (IMD).
The IMD World Competitiveness Ranking presents the overall ranking of 69 economies.
Most competitive economies in the world in 2025
Based on analysis by leading academics and IMD’s own research and experience, the World Competitiveness Ranking methodology divides the national environment into four main factors:
- Economic Performance.
- Government Efficiency.
- Business Efficiency.
- Infrastructure.
Below are the 20 most competitive economies in the world in 2025:
- Switzerland.
- Singapore.
- Hong Kong SAR.
- Denmark.
- United Arab Emirates.
- Taiwan (Chinese Taipei).
- Ireland.
- Sweden.
- Qatar.
- Netherlands.
- Canada.
- Norway.
- United States.
- Finland.
- Iceland.
- China.
- Saudi Arabia.
- Australia.
- Germany
- Luxembourg.
Methodology
The 2025 edition ranks 69 economies worldwide. To do so, it combines hard data with business insights. This approach allows for a more comprehensive view of global competitiveness.
On the one hand, the perceptions come from a digital survey. It was conducted between February and May 2025. A total of 6,162 executives participated and evaluated different competitiveness issues. They used a scale from 1 to 6. 1 reflects a negative opinion; 6, the most favorable.
Then, the averages per economy were converted into a scale from 0 to 10. In total, the responses fed 92 criteria in this edition.
On the other hand, statistical indicators – also called hard data – accounted for two-thirds of the final result. These data come from international, national and private sources. In 2025, 170 criteria were used. Six of them were incorporated for the first time this year.
All of the criteria are grouped into the big four factors and each includes five sub-factors.
However, not all sub-factors have the same number of criteria. For example, the Education area requires more indicators than the Prices subfactor. However, all the subfactors have the same weight in the final result.
Thus, each subfactor represents 5% of the total. Together, the 20 sub-factors make up 100% of the consolidated score.