Countries With the Highest National Savings Rates, Ranked

Photo: Nataliya Vaitkevich / Pexels
A country's gross savings rate is the share of its income that is not used for consumption. In 2023, World Bank data put China at 42.6% of GDP, Singapore at 37.9%, India at 34.4%, and the United States at 17.1%, against a world figure of 26.2%. This ranking shows who sits at the top, explains why Kuwait and Norway save for different reasons than Singapore or China, and shows why the number matters: whatever a country saves but does not invest at home flows abroad as a current account surplus.
Educational only, not financial advice. This article describes national statistics, not personal finance. Investing involves risk of loss, and past performance does not guarantee future results. Consult a licensed financial professional before making decisions about your own money.
Savings rates also tell a story about demography, institutions, and luck. Young working populations tend to save, retirees tend to draw savings down, and countries that sell oil or gas can end up with more income than their economies can sensibly spend. Pension rules, housing markets, and the strength of the safety net all shift the balance between spending and saving. The sections below separate those forces using figures from the World Bank, Eurostat, the Central Provident Fund Board of Singapore, and the International Monetary Fund.
Key takeaways
- The World Bank's 2023 series has Kuwait first among reporting economies at 48.8% of GDP, followed by China at 42.6% and Singapore at 37.9%.
- The world figure was 26.2% in 2023 and 26.0% in 2024, so China's rate is roughly 1.6 times the global level, not more than double.
- The same country can have two rates: Singapore saved 37.9% of GDP but 47.0% of gross national income (GNI) in 2023, because the two measures use different denominators.
- Saving minus domestic investment equals the current account balance, which is why high savers run trade surpluses and low savers, such as the United States, import capital.
- Resource exporters swing hard with energy prices: Kuwait's rate went from 20.0% of GNI in 2020 to 44.6% in 2022.
- Household saving rates and national saving rates are different statistics and should not be ranked together.
What "national savings rate" actually measures
Gross national saving is what is left of a country's income after households, companies, and the government have paid for their current spending. Picture three wallets. Families put aside whatever they earn and do not spend. Companies keep the profit they do not pay out as dividends. The state saves when its revenue exceeds its day-to-day spending. Add the three together and divide by the size of the economy, and you have the national rate.
The "size of the economy" is where the first trap sits. The World Bank publishes gross savings as a share of GDP (gross domestic product, the value of everything produced inside a country's borders) and as a share of GNI (gross national income, which adds income earned abroad by residents and subtracts income sent abroad). For many countries the two ratios are close. China was at 42.6% of GDP and 42.9% of GNI in 2023. For others they diverge sharply. Singapore was at 37.9% of GDP and 47.0% of GNI that year, and Kuwait was at 48.8% of GDP and 40.9% of GNI. Anyone ranking countries by "savings rate" has to say which version they mean, or the order can change by several places. For a refresher on the denominator itself, see our explainer on what GDP is and why it matters.
The same economy, two answers. According to World Bank series updated in October 2026, Singapore's gross savings were 37.9% of GDP in 2023 and 47.0% of GNI in the same year. Neither is wrong. They answer slightly different questions.
Ireland offers the cleanest warning about GDP-based ratios. Ireland's Central Statistics Office (CSO) created a supplementary indicator, modified GNI (written GNI*), to strip out what it calls globalization effects: the income of re-domiciled multinational companies, depreciation on imported research-related intellectual property, and depreciation on leased aircraft. The gap is large. In 2017, Irish GDP was about €294.1 billion and GNI* about €181.2 billion, and the CSO showed general government debt at 68.4% of GDP but 111.1% of GNI*. Ireland's 2023 savings figure in the World Bank series, 34.1% of GDP, should therefore be read with that distortion in mind, since a swollen denominator or numerator can flatter or hide the real picture.
Finally, data gaps matter. Qatar does not appear in the World Bank's 2023 gross savings series, so any 2023 table that shows a Qatari figure is using another source or an estimate. The most recent value in the World Bank's GNI-based series is 59.5% for 2022. That is why the rankings below say plainly which year and which measure each number comes from, rather than blending sources.
Which economies save the most: the 2023 ranking
The table lists the 20 highest values among economies that reported 2023 gross savings to the World Bank. It includes small economies, which is why it looks different from lists of the world's biggest savers by dollar amount. A small, specialized economy, such as an oil exporter with few residents or a gambling and tourism hub, can post a very high ratio without having much weight in global capital flows.
| Rank | Economy | Gross savings (% of GDP, 2023) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kuwait | 48.8 |
| 2 | Brunei Darussalam | 45.9 |
| 3 | Macao SAR, China | 44.6 |
| 4 | Bermuda | 43.4 |
| 5 | China | 42.6 |
| 6 | Iraq | 41.1 |
| 7 | Algeria | 40.8 |
| 8 | Cambodia | 38.8 |
| 9 | San Marino | 38.6 |
| 10 | Singapore | 37.9 |
| 11 | Norway | 37.2 |
| 12 | Nepal | 36.2 |
| 13 | Tanzania | 36.2 |
| 14 | Indonesia | 35.9 |
| 15 | Tajikistan | 35.3 |
| 16 | Bahrain | 35.1 |
| 17 | Vietnam | 35.0 |
| 18 | Panama | 35.0 |
| 19 | Bangladesh | 34.9 |
| 20 | Denmark | 34.7 |
Source: World Bank, Gross savings (% of GDP), indicator NY.GNS.ICTR.ZS, 2023 values, series last updated October 8, 2026. Economies with no 2023 value, including Qatar, are not ranked.
Three groups dominate the top. The first is hydrocarbon exporters: Kuwait, Brunei, Iraq, Algeria, Bahrain, and Norway. Their income arrives as royalties and export revenue that a small domestic economy cannot absorb. The second is fast-growing Asian economies, among them China, Cambodia, Nepal, Indonesia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, and Singapore, where investment needs are high and a large share of income is held back from consumption. The third is a scattering of small, specialized economies such as Macao and Bermuda. Denmark is the one rich European democracy to make the top 20, which is a reminder that high saving is not exclusively an emerging-market habit.
The ranking looks different when you ask about the big economies that most readers have in mind. The next table shows selected large and advanced economies, with the world and regional aggregates for reference.
| Economy or group | Gross savings (% of GDP, 2023) |
|---|---|
| China | 42.6 |
| India | 34.4 |
| Switzerland | 34.3 |
| South Korea | 33.4 |
| Saudi Arabia | 31.9 |
| Japan | 31.4 |
| Sweden | 31.2 |
| Netherlands | 29.5 |
| Austria | 27.7 |
| Germany | 27.6 |
| Belgium | 25.7 |
| Thailand | 25.6 |
| Malaysia | 23.9 |
| Australia | 23.8 |
| Canada | 21.9 |
| France | 21.8 |
| United States | 17.1 |
| Brazil | 15.0 |
| United Kingdom | 14.9 |
| World | 26.2 |
| OECD members | 22.4 |
| Euro area | 24.7 |
| East Asia & Pacific | 36.6 |
Source: World Bank, Gross savings (% of GDP), indicator NY.GNS.ICTR.ZS, 2023 values, series last updated October 8, 2026. Aggregates are the World Bank's own groupings.
Two things stand out. East Asia sits more than 10 percentage points above the world figure, and every economy in the OECD (the club of mostly wealthy democracies) is, on average, below it. Within that club the spread is wide, from Switzerland at 34.3% to the United Kingdom at 14.9%. The United Arab Emirates, at 33.3% of GDP in 2023, sits in the same band as South Korea and Switzerland.
Why savings must go somewhere: the link to investment and trade
Saving is not a stockpile of cash in a vault. It is income that is not consumed, and it has to be used for something. A country can invest it at home, in factories, housing, roads, and equipment. Or it can lend it abroad. The national accounts tie the two together in an identity: saving minus domestic investment equals the current account balance, which is exports minus imports once income and transfers are counted.
An analogy makes the logic plain. Imagine an island farm that harvests 100 bushels of grain. The farmers eat 60 and keep 40, so their saving rate is 40%. If they plant all 40 as seed and build a new barn, their investment is also 40, and nothing leaves the island. If they only need 30 for seed and barn-building, the other 10 must be sold or lent to someone off the island. That 10 is the surplus. Conversely, a farm that wants to plant 50 while keeping only 40 has to borrow 10 from outside, and that borrowing is a deficit.
The 2023 numbers follow this pattern closely. The table sets gross savings and gross capital formation (the World Bank's term for investment) side by side and compares the gap with the reported current account balance.
| Economy | Savings (% of GDP) | Investment (% of GDP) | Savings minus investment | Current account (% of GDP) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| China | 42.6 | 41.1 | +1.5 | +1.4 |
| Germany | 27.6 | 22.0 | +5.6 | +5.5 |
| Japan | 31.4 | 27.8 | +3.6 | +3.6 |
| South Korea | 33.4 | 31.9 | +1.5 | +1.8 |
| Singapore | 37.9 | 21.1 | +16.8 | +16.4 |
| Norway | 37.2 | 23.6 | +13.6 | +17.2 |
| United States | 17.1 | 21.6 | -4.5 | -3.3 |
Source: World Bank indicators NY.GNS.ICTR.ZS, NE.GDI.TOTL.ZS, and BN.CAB.XOKA.GD.ZS, 2023 values, series last updated October 2026. "Savings minus investment" is calculated from the first two columns.
For most of these economies the gap and the reported balance agree within a few tenths of a point. The identity is an accounting truth, but published series compile each piece from different sources and on different revision schedules, so gaps such as the 3.6 points for Norway and 1.2 points for the United States appear. The lesson is not that the identity fails. It is that national statistics rarely reconcile to the last decimal.
Look at what the table implies. China saves a great deal, but it also invests about as much, so its current account was close to balanced in 2023. Singapore saves 37.9% of GDP and invests only 21.1%, so it exports nearly 17 points of its output as net lending to the rest of the world. The United States is the mirror image: it invests 4.5 points more than it saves, and foreign capital fills the gap. Countries that run persistent surpluses often accumulate public or quasi-public assets abroad, a topic covered in our rankings of foreign exchange reserves.
China: three decades above 35 percent
China's savings history is the most studied in economics because of its size and persistence. The World Bank series shows the rate at 36.6% of GDP in 1990, 35.6% in 2000, 50.8% in 2010, and 42.6% in 2023. The International Monetary Fund's working paper "China's High Savings: Drivers, Prospects, and Policies" (WP/18/277) uses a slightly different data set and reports a peak of 52% of GDP in 2008, then 46% in 2017, against a global average of about 20% and about 15% for emerging economies in the paper's data.
| Economy | 1990 | 2000 | 2010 | 2015 | 2020 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| China | 36.6 | 35.6 | 50.8 | 45.1 | 43.5 | 42.7 |
| India | 21.2 | 26.1 | 36.3 | 32.5 | 28.7 | 34.8 |
| Japan | n/a | 32.2 | 27.3 | 29.5 | 29.7 | 32.1 |
| South Korea | 39.6 | 34.2 | 35.0 | 35.8 | 35.8 | 35.0 |
| Singapore | 43.7 | 46.4 | 50.6 | 44.1 | 42.1 | 40.5 |
| Norway | 27.0 | 36.4 | 33.9 | 31.5 | 26.5 | 38.7 |
| Germany | 24.8 | 22.1 | 25.1 | 27.6 | 28.0 | 27.1 |
| United States | 18.8 | 20.8 | 15.4 | 19.7 | 18.4 | 16.6 |
Source: World Bank, Gross savings (% of GDP), NY.GNS.ICTR.ZS, series last updated October 8, 2026. Japan's 1990 value is missing in the source.
The same period saw China's economy grow from about $362 billion in current US dollars in 1990 to about $18.7 trillion in 2024, according to World Bank national accounts data, while the United States went from about $5.96 trillion to $29.3 trillion. Those two figures cannot prove that saving caused growth. Fast growth raises incomes, and rising incomes can raise saving, so the causal arrow likely runs both ways. What the data do show is that a high-saving China financed an investment rate of 41.1% of GDP in 2023, compared with 21.6% in the United States.
Why do Chinese households, firms, and the government save so much? The IMF paper breaks the answer into pieces and puts rough magnitudes on several of them.
- Demographics. An overlapping-generations model cited in the paper attributes about half of the rise in household saving to demographic shifts, including the fall in family size after the one-child policy.
- Precautionary motives. Reduced pension generosity added 5.2 percentage points to the household saving rate between 1995 and 2009, according to a study the paper cites.
- Housing. Housing reform accounts for about a quarter of the rise in household saving since the 1980s, though by 2013 homeowners saved about 2 percentage points less than non-owners.
- Inequality. Composition effects of rising inequality added about 3 percentage points to the aggregate saving rate from 1978 to 2015.
- Financial repression. Artificially low deposit rates are described as "arguably no longer a driver of household savings today."
- Companies and government. Corporate saving surged in the 2000s and then returned toward global norms after the global financial crisis, while government saving has run near 5% of GDP since 2008.
The paper puts household saving at a peak of about 25% of disposable income, and notes that household saving at 23% of GDP was 15 percentage points above the global average. In other words, Chinese households are not the only story, but their precaution has been a large one. The paper's projections matter for the future of the ranking: it expected national saving to fall by 4.5 percentage points of GDP by 2022 and by close to 10 points by 2030, with demographic change alone cutting household saving by about 6 points by 2030. The World Bank series shows 44.8% in 2022 and 42.6% in 2023, so the decline has been slower than the paper's baseline path, though the series use different definitions and the 2030 projection is still ahead.
The Gulf and Norway: saving what the ground provides
Kuwait's 48.8% of GDP and Qatar's 59.5% of GNI (2022) have little to do with household thrift. When a state earns oil and gas revenue far above what a small economy can consume or invest sensibly, the surplus is saved by default. The saving shows up in the government sector and in state-owned companies, and in recent decades it has flowed into sovereign wealth funds and foreign assets. The size of those funds is documented in our ranking of the largest sovereign wealth funds.
The consequence is volatility. A savings rate that depends on commodity prices moves with them. The table below uses the World Bank's GNI-based series, the only one that includes a recent Qatar value.
| Economy | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Qatar | 51.8 | 47.3 | 42.7 | 52.2 | 59.5 | n/a | n/a |
| Kuwait | 35.2 | 31.2 | 20.0 | 34.1 | 44.6 | 40.9 | 36.6 |
| Bahrain | 31.0 | 35.7 | 30.3 | 36.7 | 41.0 | 37.2 | 35.9 |
| Saudi Arabia | 30.3 | 29.6 | 19.7 | 30.1 | 38.4 | 31.7 | 30.2 |
| Oman | 28.8 | 23.8 | 12.1 | 24.0 | 34.2 | 30.6 | 29.4 |
| Norway | 31.4 | 28.3 | 26.4 | 35.1 | 46.7 | 37.3 | 37.5 |
Source: World Bank, Gross savings (% of GNI), indicator NY.GNS.ICTR.GN.ZS, series last updated October 8, 2026. "n/a" means no value in the series.
Read across the 2020 column and then the 2022 column. Oman's rate fell to 12.1% in 2020 and climbed to 34.2% in 2022, Saudi Arabia's moved from 19.7% to 38.4%, and Kuwait's from 20.0% to 44.6%. The 2022 peak lines up with the spike in oil and gas prices that year, and the 2020 trough with the collapse in demand early in the pandemic. A "high savings rate" for a hydrocarbon exporter is partly a statement about the price of a barrel.
Norway shows how institutions can turn the same windfall into a long-term policy. At the end of 2025 the Government Pension Fund Global, which holds the state's petroleum revenue, was worth NOK 21,268 billion after a 15.1% return in 2025, according to the fund's manager, Norges Bank Investment Management. The Norwegian Ministry of Finance's fiscal rule, in place since 2001, directs the government to draw on the fund over time in line with its expected real return, and in 2017 the ministry cut that expected return from 4% to 3%. The rule is a policy framework, not a constitutional provision. Its effect is that most of each year's petroleum income is saved abroad rather than spent, which helps explain a 2022 rate of 46.7% of GNI in the table above.
Singapore: saving written into the payroll
Singapore's rate fell from 50.6% of GDP in 2010 to 37.9% in 2023 before rising to 40.5% in 2024, but it has remained among the highest in the world for decades. One mechanism is mandatory. Under the Central Provident Fund (CPF), employees aged 55 and below who earn more than S$750 a month contribute 20% of their wages and employers add another 17%, for a total of 37%, according to the CPF Board's published contribution rates, which are unchanged for 2026. The money sits in individual accounts that can be used for retirement, housing, and healthcare.
This is a different kind of saving from a Gulf windfall. It is spread across hundreds of thousands of workers, and it is hard to avoid. The CPF is not the whole explanation, since national saving also includes corporate and government saving, but it is a clear example of how the design of a pension system can lift household saving above what voluntary behavior would produce. Malaysia, at 23.9% of GDP in 2023, runs a comparable provident fund, the Employees Provident Fund, yet posts a rate more than 14 points lower, which shows that a mandatory scheme is not the only driver. Singapore's current account surplus of 16.4% of GDP in 2023 is the other side of the coin: the economy saves far more than it invests at home.
India, Japan, and South Korea: three paths through the same decades
Looking at the time series side by side in the table above, three Asian economies diverge. India's rate climbed from 21.2% in 1990 to 36.3% in 2010, slipped to 28.7% in 2020, and rebounded to 34.8% by 2024. That path is not a straight line, and the data alone do not say why; economists have pointed to income growth, a young population, and shifting household behavior, but each explanation needs its own evidence.
Japan's saving rate was 32.2% in 2000, fell to 27.3% in 2010, and rose again to 32.1% in 2024. Japan has one of the oldest populations in the world, so it is a useful case against the simple story that aging always cuts national saving. Households may draw down, but companies and the government also save and dissave, and the national total reflects all three. Our ranking of countries with the oldest populations shows where Japan sits on the age scale.
South Korea began the series at 39.6% in 1990 and sat at 35.0% in 2024, with a 2023 reading of 33.4%. The country's investment ratio was 31.9% in 2023, so most of its saving is turned into domestic capital, which is why its current account balance is smaller than Germany's or Singapore's.
Germany, the Nordics, and the United States
Germany is a high saver by rich-country standards. Its gross savings stood at 27.6% of GDP in 2023, and its current account surplus was 5.5% of GDP. Germany's national rate rose from 24.8% in 1990 to 28.0% in 2020, a trend that sits alongside a persistent trade surplus. Sweden, at 31.2%, and Denmark, at 34.7%, are in a similar league. Those figures include company and government saving, which is why they are not the same as the household saving rate.
Household saving rates have their own source. Eurostat publishes a gross household saving rate: gross saving as a percentage of gross disposable income for households and non-profit institutions serving households. The table shows a selection.
| Economy | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Germany | 18.9 (p) | 19.6 (p) | 18.9 (p) |
| Sweden | 17.1 | 18.7 | 16.0 |
| France | 16.7 (p) | 17.9 (p) | n/a |
| Netherlands | 15.1 | 16.7 | 17.4 (p) |
| Austria | 15.1 | 17.3 | 15.7 |
| Belgium | 14.0 | 12.9 (p) | n/a |
| European Union (27) | 13.6 | 14.5 | 14.3 |
Source: Eurostat, Household saving rate (tec00131), gross saving as % of gross disposable income, data updated October 14, 2026. (p) means provisional; "n/a" means no value yet.
Do not compare these numbers with the national rates above. A household rate divides household saving by household income, while the national rate adds companies and governments and divides by GDP. A country can have a high household rate and a modest national rate, or the reverse. Different agencies also publish net rather than gross measures, and the level can differ by several points depending on the publisher. Always check which one a table uses.
The United States is the standout among large rich economies for how little it saves. Gross saving was 17.1% of GDP in 2023 and 16.6% in 2024 in the World Bank series, below investment, so the current account ran a deficit of 3.3% of GDP in 2023 and 4.1% in 2024. On the household side, the Bureau of Economic Analysis personal saving rate, as published through the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED), was 7.3% in 2019, spiked to 15.3% in 2020 during pandemic transfers and restricted spending, fell to 3.5% in 2022, and read 6.1% in 2023, 6.3% in 2024, and 5.4% in 2025 in the September 2026 data release. That swing from 15.3% to 3.5% in two years is a reminder that household saving can move quickly while national saving, which includes the government sector, moves more slowly. For the household debt side of the same story, see our ranking of countries with the highest household debt.
What a high savings rate does and does not tell you
A high savings rate is not an automatic sign of a healthy economy. The economist John Maynard Keynes laid out the paradox of thrift in his 1936 book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. If everyone tries to save more at once, spending falls, firms see weaker sales and cut output, and incomes fall, which can leave total saving no higher than before. The paradox applies to downturns and to economies where demand, not capacity, is the constraint. It is the reason high-saving countries often rely on foreign demand, which is how a savings surplus becomes a trade surplus.
A low rate is not automatically a warning either. The United States has run low saving for years while attracting investment from abroad, which is financing, not disaster. The risk is dependence: if foreign lenders pull back, the adjustment can be painful. Conversely, a high rate carries its own risk. If savings are channeled into projects with weak returns, the investment boom turns into bad debt.
What matters is the quality of what saving is used for. High saving paired with productive investment has historically accompanied rapid catch-up growth, as the China, Singapore, and South Korea series suggest. High saving with nowhere good to invest it produces surpluses that the rest of the world has to absorb. Population change adds a long-term pressure, which our piece on how demographics will reshape the global economy covers in more depth, since aging workforces can pull national saving down over several decades.
Common misreadings of savings rankings
"A country's savings rate is what its citizens keep in the bank." It is not. Households are one of three contributors, and in some economies they are the smaller one. Kuwait's rate is mostly a statement about oil revenue.
"The top of the ranking is the most thrifty culture." Culture can matter, but the top of the table is crowded with energy exporters and small hubs. Looking only at the numbers, you cannot separate temperament from geology or pension law.
"A savings rate is a fixed trait." The tables above show otherwise. Norway's rate was 26.5% of GDP in 2020 and 46.1% in 2022. Singapore's fell more than 12 points between 2010 and 2023. Japan's moved up after 2010. Rates respond to prices, policy, and the business cycle.
"One data source settles it." Different publishers define saving differently, and the same country can appear in different places in different tables. A claim such as "Qatar saves 56%" or "Singapore saves 43%" needs a year, a denominator, and a source before it means anything.
Frequently asked questions
Q: Which country has the highest national savings rate? A: Among economies with a 2023 value in the World Bank's gross savings series, Kuwait ranks first at 48.8% of GDP, followed by Brunei at 45.9% and Macao at 44.6%. China is fifth at 42.6%. Qatar has no 2023 value in the series; its most recent GNI-based figure is 59.5% for 2022.
Q: Why does the United States save so little compared with China? A: In 2023 the United States saved 17.1% of GDP and invested 21.6%, while China saved 42.6% and invested 41.1%. The U.S. gap is financed by foreign capital, shown as a current account deficit of 3.3% of GDP. The data show the pattern but not a single cause; household behavior, government deficits, and corporate saving all contribute.
Q: Is a higher savings rate always better for growth? A: No. Saving supports growth only when it is invested productively. Keynes's paradox of thrift shows that a collective rush to save can depress demand in a downturn. The historical link between high saving and fast growth in China, Singapore, and South Korea does not prove that saving alone caused the growth, because income growth also raises saving.
Q: What is the difference between the household saving rate and the national saving rate? A: The household rate divides what households save by their disposable income. The national rate adds saving by companies and the government, then divides by GDP or GNI. A country can have a high household rate and a low national rate if its government runs large deficits. Eurostat's 2024 gross household rate for Germany was 19.6% (provisional), while Germany's national rate was 27.1% of GDP.
Q: How does a country's savings rate affect individual savers? A: Directly, it often does not. A national statistic describes aggregate flows, and your own outcome depends on your income, costs, and returns after inflation. For the personal side, see our explainers on how inflation erodes purchasing power and how compound interest works. This is general education, not advice.
Q: Why do oil exporters' savings rates swing so much? A: Their income depends heavily on commodity prices, while spending is steadier. In the World Bank GNI-based series, Oman's rate went from 12.1% in 2020 to 34.2% in 2022, and Kuwait's from 20.0% to 44.6%. When prices rise, income jumps and consumption lags, so the saved share rises, and the reverse happens when prices fall.
The bottom line
National savings rates look like a clean league table, but they are really three stories stacked together. Hydrocarbon exporters save because geology hands them more income than their economies can use, and their rates ride energy prices up and down. Asian economies such as China and Singapore save through a mix of demographics, precaution, and policy, and their rates are drifting lower as populations age. Rich Western economies save less, and the United States, at 17.1% of GDP in 2023, relies on foreign capital to bridge the gap between what it saves and what it invests. The one rule that ties them together is the identity at the center of the national accounts: what a country saves and does not invest at home must go somewhere else.
Sources
- World Bank, Gross savings (% of GDP), NY.GNS.ICTR.ZS: api.worldbank.org/v2/country/all/indicator/NY.GNS.ICTR.ZS (accessed October 20, 2026).
- World Bank, Gross savings (% of GNI), NY.GNS.ICTR.GN.ZS: api.worldbank.org.
- World Bank, Gross capital formation (% of GDP), NE.GDI.TOTL.ZS, and Current account balance (% of GDP), BN.CAB.XOKA.GD.ZS: api.worldbank.org.
- Eurostat, Household saving rate (tec00131): ec.europa.eu/eurostat.
- U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income, via FRED series A072RC1A156NBEA: fred.stlouisfed.org.
- International Monetary Fund, "China's High Savings: Drivers, Prospects, and Policies," Working Paper WP/18/277: imf.org.
- Central Statistics Office, Ireland, National Income and Expenditure 2017 FAQ (modified GNI): cso.ie.
- Central Provident Fund Board, Singapore, contribution rates: cpf.gov.sg.
- Norges Bank Investment Management, Annual report 2025: nbim.no.
Related Reading
- Countries With the Highest Tax Rates in the World (2025)
- Countries With the Highest (and Lowest) Inflation Rates (2025)
- Countries With the Highest Minimum Wage in the World (2025)
- Countries With the Most National Debt Per Capita (2025)
- Countries With the Lowest Tax Rates in the World (2025)
- Countries With the Highest GDP Per Capita
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About the Author
SciHub101 is an independent science and technology publication founded and edited by Buğra Sözeri, a software engineer and app developer based in Türkiye. AI tools assist with drafting and research. Source documentation in the existing archive is uneven, and articles are being reviewed and corrected. The Editorial Team byline identifies editorial responsibility; it does not certify specialist or independent human review. Where we compare products, anything built by our own team is labelled as such — see the editorial guidelines and About page for how corrections and disclosures work.
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