Available Now! 2025 International Property Rights Index
Oct 15, 2025
We are delighted to present the 2025 edition of the International Property Rights Index (IPRI). Containing key insights into global property rights, the IPRI offers an unparalleled tool for policymakers, researchers, and firms to understand the importance of strong property rights protections to stimulate growth and innovation.
The index covers the property rights regimes of 126 countries, representing over 92.3% of the global population and 97.5% of global GDP, holistically analyzing emerging trends in property rights across the globe. The global average IPRI score in 2025 was 5.13, with a maximum score of 8.3 and a minimum of 1.7. This score demonstrates a continued decline in global property rights standards, decreasing by 0.05 points (0.97%) from the 2024 global average of 5.18, and by 1.54% since 2023.
The decline in global IPRI scores was primarily driven by the deterioration of physical property rights. The Physical Property Rights component of the IPRI score (PPR) declined by 3.28%. The inclusion of a new “access to financing” data series within the PPR component highlighted emerging issues of exclusion from financial institutions and capital controls, ultimately contributing to the decline in score.
The Intellectual Property Rights component of the IPRI (IPR) experienced a 0.65% decline, continuing a downward trend from previous editions of the report. In contrast, the Legal and Political Environment component (LP) saw a modest 0.99% improvement.
North America and Europe remained the regions with the highest IPRI scores, averaging 7.71 and 7.39, respectively. The top five individual improvements in IPRI all originated in Europe. Croatia experienced an increase of 1.07 points (20.51%), Bulgaria 1.05 points (20.5%), Greece 0.83 points (16.19%), and Italy 0.96 points (16.06%).
Meanwhile, declining scores across developing countries in Asia and Africa contributed to overall declines in global averages. The Middle East and North Africa declined by 0.37 points (−7.4%) to 4.63, Latin America and the Caribbean declined by 0.03 points (−0.07%) to 4.40, while Africa had the lowest average of 3.78, a decline of 0.27 points (−6.67%).
The emerging global divide in property rights standards is further demonstrated when evaluating property rights by national income. High-income countries scored an IPRI of 6.71 (an increase of 0.12), upper-middle-income countries scored 4.66 (a decline of 0.08), lower-middle-income countries scored 3.89 (a decline of 0.23), and low-income countries scored 3.17 (a decline of 0.23).
The report also highlights the important link between social equality and property rights. In 2025, the global Gender Equality (GE) score was 7.91, the same as in 2024. The global average IPRI-GE score—the IPRI adjusted for gender equality—was 4.68. This is 8.71% lower than the base IPRI score and represents a 0.55% decline from last year, signaling ongoing global challenges in addressing gender imbalances in property rights ownership.
The 2025 IPRI report underscores the ever-increasing importance of robust property rights in ensuring growth and innovation. It highlights ongoing challenges to global protections and identifies areas for improvement.
Addressing these challenges will require efforts by policymakers to expand protections for physical and intellectual property rights. To this end, the IPRI remains a crucial tool for navigating the global property rights environment.
The International Property Rights Index can be found [here].