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Employment & wages · Employment

Self-employed (% of total employment)

% of employment · Annual · 187 of 218 countries (86 %) · 1991–2025
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World average (population-weighted)
48.1 %
across 182 countries, 2025
Latest observation
2025
Source updated
13 Jul 2026
CountryAtlas refreshed
11 Sep 2026
Snapshot 20260911T072322Z

World map

One value per country for the selected year. Hatched = no data.

1991–2025 · 182 countries
Self-employed (% of total employment), 2025World map of Self-employed (% of total employment) (2025) for 182 countries, from 0.8 % to 91.6 %.Fiji: 34.1 %Tanzania: 85.3 %W. Sahara: —Canada: 12.9 %United States: 6.1 %Kazakhstan: 26.1 %Uzbekistan: 45.4 %Papua New Guinea: 78.7 %Indonesia: 53.3 %Argentina: 25.6 %Chile: 23.9 %DR Congo: 85.1 %Somalia: 52.2 %Kenya: 64.8 %Sudan: —Chad: 91.6 %Haiti: 76.8 %Dominican Republic: 42.1 %Russia: 6.3 %Bahamas: 17.1 %Falkland Is.: —Norway: 4.9 %Greenland: —Fr. S. Antarctic Lands: —Timor-Leste: 74.9 %South Africa: 17.3 %Lesotho: 38.5 %Mexico: 30.8 %Uruguay: 28.0 %Brazil: 30.3 %Bolivia: 66.3 %Peru: 51.3 %Colombia: 45.6 %Panama: 40.6 %Costa Rica: 26.6 %Nicaragua: 44.3 %Honduras: 44.1 %El Salvador: 35.7 %Guatemala: 39.1 %Belize: 35.2 %Venezuela: 40.4 %Guyana: 31.1 %Suriname: 22.5 %France: 13.3 %Ecuador: 52.3 %Puerto Rico: 12.6 %Jamaica: 35.7 %Cuba: 24.9 %Zimbabwe: 70.8 %Botswana: 28.1 %Namibia: 36.5 %Senegal: 64.3 %Mali: 76.4 %Mauritania: 57.4 %Benin: 79.8 %Niger: 89.5 %Nigeria: 86.2 %Cameroon: 69.3 %Togo: 76.6 %Ghana: 67.5 %Côte d'Ivoire: 71.0 %Guinea: 81.9 %Guinea-Bissau: 75.5 %Liberia: 78.3 %Sierra Leone: 88.8 %Burkina Faso: 82.6 %Central African Republic: 85.4 %Republic of the Congo: 76.8 %Gabon: 32.4 %Equatorial Guinea: 27.5 %Zambia: 71.7 %Malawi: 61.3 %Mozambique: 85.3 %Eswatini: 30.2 %Angola: 75.9 %Burundi: 84.9 %Israel: 11.3 %Lebanon: —Madagascar: 88.3 %Palestine: —Gambia: 68.6 %Tunisia: 24.9 %Algeria: 30.2 %Jordan: 11.2 %United Arab Emirates: 5.1 %Qatar: 0.8 %Kuwait: 3.2 %Iraq: 31.7 %Oman: 5.0 %Vanuatu: 60.6 %Cambodia: 55.5 %Thailand: 50.7 %Laos: 77.1 %Myanmar: 65.5 %Vietnam: 53.3 %North Korea: 62.1 %South Korea: 22.7 %Mongolia: 41.2 %India: 74.9 %Bangladesh: 61.0 %Bhutan: 69.5 %Nepal: 78.6 %Pakistan: 57.0 %Afghanistan: 83.4 %Tajikistan: 31.3 %Kyrgyzstan: 30.5 %Turkmenistan: 32.0 %Iran: 42.9 %Syria: 42.4 %Armenia: 33.7 %Sweden: 10.2 %Belarus: 6.8 %Ukraine: —Poland: 18.9 %Austria: 12.2 %Hungary: 11.6 %Moldova: 58.8 %Romania: 14.5 %Lithuania: 11.5 %Latvia: 13.7 %Estonia: 12.1 %Germany: 8.1 %Bulgaria: 11.8 %Greece: 30.5 %Türkiye: 28.5 %Albania: 50.3 %Croatia: 12.7 %Switzerland: 16.9 %Luxembourg: 10.3 %Belgium: 14.6 %Netherlands: 16.8 %Portugal: 14.4 %Spain: 14.5 %Ireland: 13.4 %New Caledonia: 17.1 %Solomon Islands: 69.9 %New Zealand: 18.4 %Australia: 16.1 %Sri Lanka: 42.1 %China: 37.7 %Taiwan: —Italy: 21.1 %Denmark: 7.9 %United Kingdom: 13.1 %Iceland: 13.3 %Azerbaijan: 67.0 %Georgia: 46.1 %Philippines: 36.1 %Malaysia: 25.4 %Brunei: 7.3 %Slovenia: 14.0 %Finland: 12.5 %Slovakia: 14.9 %Czechia: 15.7 %Eritrea: 52.4 %Japan: 9.1 %Paraguay: 41.3 %Yemen: 52.6 %Saudi Arabia: 5.5 %N. Cyprus: —Cyprus: 10.2 %Morocco: 40.1 %Egypt: 27.0 %Libya: 25.9 %Ethiopia: 84.3 %Djibouti: 51.1 %Somaliland: —Uganda: 80.5 %Rwanda: 40.4 %Bosnia and Herzegovina: 22.1 %North Macedonia: 16.6 %Serbia: 27.0 %Montenegro: 17.4 %Kosovo: —Trinidad and Tobago: 25.7 %South Sudan: —
Self-employed (% of total employment), 2025
  • 0.8 % – 12.7 %
  • 12.7 % – 20.4 %
  • 20.4 % – 31.8 %
  • 31.8 % – 45.9 %
  • 45.9 % – 70.6 %
  • 70.6 % – 91.6 %
  • No data
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Trend

Aggregate across the countries of a group, year by year. Computed by CountryAtlas from country values — no published aggregate is used.

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Definition

Definition
Unit
% of employment (%)
Frequency
Annual
Aggregation
none · No direction
Valid range
0 – 100

Sources & provenance

Every value on this page comes from one of these series, chosen per country by priority.

  1. Priority #1
    World BankWDISL.EMP.SELF.ZSok
    187 countries · 6,531 obs. · → 2025 · CC BY 4.0

    Self-employed workers are those workers who, working on their own account or with one or a few partners or in cooperative, hold the type of jobs defined as a "self-employment jobs." i.e. jobs where the remuneration is directly dependent upon the profits derived from the goods and services produced. Self-employed workers include sub-categories of employers, own-account workers and members of producers' cooperatives and contributing family workers. Source: ILO Modelled Estimates database (ILOEST), International Labour Organization (ILO), uri: https://ilostat.ilo.org/data/bulk/, publisher: ILOSTAT, type: external database, date accessed: January 17, 2026

    Open at source

Series-level selection: for each country the whole series comes from the highest-priority source that has any non-forecast value for it. If a lower-priority source is more than three years fresher, the freshest source wins instead. Non-chosen values are kept as alternatives, never discarded.

Countries without data

36 of 218 countries have no value for 2025.

Typical reasons: the source does not survey small territories or micro-states; the statistical office reports with a lag of one to three years; the series is only compiled for member countries of the source organisation (OECD, EU, Eurostat); or a value exists but failed validation and is quarantined rather than shown.

Downloads & API

Every observation for this indicator, all countries and years, with provenance columns.

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API example

One country, full history. Replace CAN by any ISO3 code or slug.

bash
curl -s "https://www.countryatlas.co/api/v1/series?country=CAN&indicator=self-employed-share" | jq '.series[0] | {country: .country.name, unit, last: .stats.last, source: .provenance.source_name}'

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