Free market statistics usually measure economic freedom through property rights, government size, regulation, trade, and financial openness. Recent figures from the Heritage Foundation, Fraser Institute, and World Trade Organization show both the scale of global market exchange and the large differences between more- and less-free economies. The dates matter: the 2026 Heritage Index generally reflects information current through June 30, 2025, while the latest Fraser global ranking uses its most recent available data year.
Contents
- How economic freedom is measured
- Global economic freedom statistics
- Country rankings and changes
- Economic freedom and living standards
- North American state statistics
- The scale of global trade
- Trade growth, openness, and restrictions
How economic freedom is measured
The Heritage Foundation’s 2026 Index of Economic Freedom is its 32nd edition and covers 184 sovereign countries. It evaluates 12 freedoms across four dimensions: rule of law, government size, regulatory efficiency, and market openness. The freedoms range from property rights to financial freedom.
Each of the 12 components receives equal weight on a 0-to-100 scale. Heritage says this equal-weighting method is intended to prevent any single component from biasing the total score. The index includes updated economic freedom scores and macroeconomic data for 184 economies.
The 2026 edition uses data from the second half of 2024 through the first half of 2025 and generally treats information as current as of June 30, 2025. These are measurement dates, not a claim that every policy condition changed on one day. The Heritage Index is therefore best read as a structured comparison of policy conditions over that reporting window.
Fraser’s 2024 Economic Freedom of the World report uses a different framework and covers 165 jurisdictions. Because the two indexes have different coverage, methods, and data periods, their rankings should not be treated as interchangeable. Both are useful for tracking market-oriented institutions, but each result belongs to its named source.
Global economic freedom statistics
The Heritage Foundation reports a global average economic freedom score of 59.9 in its 2026 Index. That was 0.2 point higher than the 59.7 average in the 2025 Index and above the 58.6 average reported for the 2024 Index. Heritage describes the world economy as “mostly unfree.”
The distribution of scores is broad:
- Four countries scored 80 or more.
- Twenty-seven countries scored from 70.0 to 79.9.
- Fifty-eight countries scored from 60.0 to 69.9.
- Eighty-nine countries scored 60.0 or above.
- Eighty-seven economies scored below 60.
The ranking table in the 2026 report rated 176 countries, while the broader index coverage is described as 184 sovereign countries or economies. Those are different counts within the same edition and should not be silently combined.
The global average’s movement is modest compared with the wider distribution. A 0.2-point rise from 2025 to 2026 does not mean all countries moved in the same direction. It summarizes the change in the reported global average, while individual country results vary considerably.
Country rankings and changes
The United States scored 72.8 in the 2026 Heritage Index and ranked 22nd freest. Its score rose by nearly 3 points from the prior year, and Heritage reported that this was the country’s largest improvement since 2001. Argentina’s economic freedom rating increased by 3.2 points in the same edition.
Fraser’s 2024 report gives a different snapshot based on its most recent-data year. The top of that ranking was Hong Kong in first place, Singapore in second, Switzerland in third, New Zealand in fourth, and the United States in fifth. Denmark and Ireland tied for sixth, Canada ranked eighth, and Australia and Luxembourg tied for ninth.
| Fraser Economic Freedom of the World rank | Jurisdiction or jurisdictions |
|---|---|
| 1 | Hong Kong |
| 2 | Singapore |
| 3 | Switzerland |
| 4 | New Zealand |
| 5 | United States |
| 6 | Denmark and Ireland, tied |
| 8 | Canada |
| 9 | Australia and Luxembourg, tied |
These rankings illustrate why a source label and measurement period belong beside every free market statistic. The Heritage result places the United States 22nd in a 2026 index, while Fraser places it fifth in its 2024 report’s most recent-data year. The difference is not necessarily a contradiction; it reflects distinct methodologies, coverage, and timing.
Economic freedom and living standards
Fraser reports substantial differences between the freest and least economically free quarters of jurisdictions. Compared with the least-free quarter, gross domestic product per person was 7.6 times greater in the freest quarter. The poorest 10 percent earned eight times as much in the freest quarter.
The same comparison includes several non-income measures. The average person lived 16 years longer in the freest quarter, and people were 40 percent more satisfied with their lives. Infant mortality in the least-free quarter was nine times greater than in the freest quarter. Extreme poverty was 30 times as common in the least-free quarter, while 2.5 times as many children worked there.
Fraser also reports an education difference: in the least-free quarter, only 78 percent of girls aged 15 to 24 were literate. This figure is presented as a comparison for that quarter, not as a global average.
The report says global economic freedom increased from 2000 to 2019, then declined in each of the three years after 2019. That longer trend provides context for the newer cross-sectional comparisons: a country’s position in a ranking and the global direction of the index are related questions, but they are not the same statistic.
North American state statistics
Fraser’s 2024 North America report covers 93 jurisdictions: 10 Canadian provinces, 50 U.S. states, 32 Mexican states, and Puerto Rico. In its all-government North America index, New Hampshire ranked first and Idaho ranked second. Oklahoma and South Carolina tied for third, while Florida and Indiana tied for fifth.
The report also connects relative economic freedom with differences in income and growth across its North American sample. Incomes in the freest top quarter were 21 times higher than in the least-free quarter.
For U.S. states, Fraser reports that from 2013 to 2022, population in the freest states grew 10 times faster than population in the least-free states. Over the same 2013–2022 period, total employment in the freest states grew three times faster than in the least-free states. These are reported growth comparisons for the named period, not forecasts of future state population or employment.
The scale of global trade
The World Trade Organization reports that world trade volume in 2025 was roughly 45 times the early GATT level, equivalent to 4,500 percent growth from 1950 to 2025. World trade values were almost 410 times the 1950 level. The WTO also reports average expansion of 4 percent in trade volume and 6 percent in trade value since 1995.
In 2024, world trade in goods and commercial services reached US$32.2 trillion. Services accounted for 27.2 percent of global trade, their highest share since 2005. This measure combines goods and commercial services, while the WTO’s merchandise indicators below refer specifically to goods.
The WTO projected 2.7 percent merchandise trade volume growth for 2024 in its December 2024 trade update. For the year through September 2024, merchandise trade volume was up 2.4 percent from the same period in 2023, and merchandise trade value was up 1.6 percent. In the third quarter of 2024, world merchandise trade value was up 4.3 percent year over year.
Regional export-volume changes in the third quarter of 2024 were mixed. The Commonwealth of Independent States recorded the largest increase, at 5.4 percent quarter over quarter. North America rose 2.1 percent, Asia rose 1.6 percent, the Middle East rose 1.5 percent, and South and Central America and the Caribbean rose 0.2 percent. Africa rose 0.1 percent, while Europe fell 0.2 percent. Europe’s import volume also fell 0.3 percent quarter over quarter.
Trade growth, openness, and restrictions
The WTO reported that world merchandise trade volume grew 3.3 percent year over year in the third quarter of 2024. In the first quarter of 2025, import growth was strongest in North America at 13.4 percent quarter over quarter. Africa recorded 5.1 percent growth, South and Central America and the Caribbean 3.6 percent, the Middle East 3.0 percent, Europe 1.3 percent, and Asia 1.1 percent.
The WTO also reported 9 percent year-over-year growth in Africa’s export value in the first quarter of 2025. Because these figures use different bases—quarter over quarter for most import results and year over year for Africa’s export value—the percentages should be read separately.
Several WTO findings quantify the relationship between lower trade barriers and economic performance. Trade between WTO/GATT members has been boosted by an average of 140 percent. Economies undergoing rigorous WTO accession negotiations grew 1.5 percentage points faster during accession. From 1996 to 2021, a high trade share in GDP was significantly correlated with faster growth in low- and middle-income economies.
The WTO says low- and middle-income economies that grew more slowly than the average high-income economy represented 13 percent of the global population from 1996 to 2021. It also estimates that trade-cost reductions increased global real GDP by 6.8 percent between 1995 and 2020, with a 33 percent increase in real GDP in low-income economies.
Openness is substantial but incomplete. Roughly 60 percent of world trade now flows tariff-free. At the same time, the WTO estimated that import restrictions in force covered US$2,942 billion of trade in 2024, or 11.8 percent of world imports. The value of export restrictions in force was US$276.7 billion, representing 1.1 percent of world merchandise exports.
Together, these figures describe free markets as a measurable institutional and commercial condition rather than a single number. Economic-freedom indexes track rules and incentives; trade statistics track the movement and value of goods and services; and the WTO restriction measures show where barriers remain within an otherwise highly integrated world economy.