According to Amnesty International’s annu­al death penal­ty report, 17 coun­tries car­ried out a total of at least 2,707 exe­cu­tions in 2025. Although the low num­ber of exe­cut­ing coun­tries was con­sis­tent with the annu­al total of 20 exe­cut­ing coun­tries or few­er since 2018, the num­ber of exe­cu­tions marked the high­est glob­al total since 1981.1 The 78% increase in known exe­cu­tions from 2024 to 2025 was pri­mar­i­ly dri­ven by Iran, which account­ed for 80% of the glob­al total and increased by 122% com­pared to 2024. There was a slight (12%) increase in new death sen­tences in 2025, with at least 2,334 new death sen­tences imposed world­wide. The orga­ni­za­tion notes that all report­ed fig­ures rep­re­sent min­i­mums, with actu­al fig­ures like­ly high­er due to a lack of trans­paren­cy in cer­tain coun­tries. Progress towards abo­li­tion con­tin­ued in sev­er­al coun­tries with some reduc­ing the num­ber of death penal­ty-eli­gi­ble offens­es and oth­ers eval­u­at­ing leg­is­la­tion to abol­ish the penalty entirely. 

The resort to the death penal­ty surged as the author­i­ties of sev­er­al coun­tries placed this cru­el pun­ish­ment at the cen­tre of flawed pub­lic secu­ri­ty and ​“tough on crime” nar­ra­tives to assert con­trol, project state pow­er and score polit­i­cal points. This trend was strongest in coun­tries where the author­i­ties have tight­ened their grip on pow­er by restrict­ing civic space, silenc­ing dis­sent and dis­play­ing dis­re­gard for pro­tec­tions estab­lished under inter­na­tion­al human rights law and standards.

Amnesty International Global Report: Death Sentences and Executions (2025)

Despite the record high exe­cu­tion num­ber, use of the death penal­ty con­tin­ues to be geo­graph­i­cal­ly iso­lat­ed to a few coun­tries in the con­ti­nents of Asia, Africa, and North America. The num­ber of exe­cut­ing coun­tries at 17 is two high­er than the record-low of 15 set in 2024. Four coun­tries (Japan, South Sudan, Taiwan, and the United Arab Emirates) resumed exe­cu­tions after a hia­tus, while two coun­tries (Oman and Syria) which car­ried out exe­cu­tions in 2024 did not in 2025. Of note, the United States was the only nation to exe­cute peo­ple in the Americas for the 17th consecutive year. 

In addi­tion to Iran, which car­ried out at least 2,159 exe­cu­tions in 2025, sig­nif­i­cant increas­es were record­ed in sev­er­al oth­er coun­tries. Saudi Arabia car­ried out at least 356 exe­cu­tions, exceed­ing their his­toric high of 345 exe­cu­tions in 2024. Together, Iran and Saudi Arabia account­ed for 93% of all exe­cu­tions world­wide. Egypt (13 to 23), Singapore (9 to 17), Yemen (38 to 51), and the United States (25 to 47) all approx­i­mate­ly dou­bled their pri­or year exe­cu­tion totals, and Kuwait near­ly tripled (6 to 17). Paralleling glob­al trends, the increase in the United States was attrib­ut­able to a region­al rise in exe­cu­tions in Florida, which account­ed for near­ly half of all exe­cu­tions. Amnesty International notes that this rise in U.S. exe­cu­tions occurred as ​“offi­cials at the fed­er­al lev­el and in some states pro­mot­ed inflam­ma­to­ry and flawed nar­ra­tives on the death penal­ty and its effect on crime, advo­cat­ing for an increase in its use.” Both the U.S. and Saudi Arabia were glob­al out­liers in exe­cu­tion meth­ods with the use of nitro­gen gas asphyx­i­a­tion and beheadings,respectively. As in pre­vi­ous years, the 2025 exe­cu­tion total does not include the thou­sands of exe­cu­tions esti­mat­ed to be car­ried out annu­al­ly in China2, regard­ed as the world’s lead­ing exe­cu­tion­er. Both China and Vietnam clas­si­fy data on the death penal­ty as a state secret. Restrictive state prac­tices in North Korea, Laos, and Belarus also result in lit­tle to no infor­ma­tion being avail­able for those countries. 

Renewed inter­est in ​“tough on crime” approach­es to the ​“war on drugs” con­tributed to the glob­al rise in exe­cu­tions. Forty-six per­cent (1,257 exe­cu­tions) of all exe­cu­tions were for drug-relat­ed crimes — near­ly dou­ble the fig­ure in 2024 (637 exe­cu­tions). At least five coun­tries (China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Singapore) were known to have car­ried out such exe­cu­tions for drug-relat­ed offens­es; Amnesty International believes Vietnam like­ly car­ried out drug-relat­ed exe­cu­tions, though infor­ma­tion on the mat­ter was unavail­able. In three coun­tries, at least 40% of all exe­cu­tions were for drug-relat­ed crime: Iran (46%), Saudi Arabia (67%), and Singapore (88%). In Saudi Arabia, the per­cent­age of drug-relat­ed exe­cu­tions almost dou­bled from the pri­or year, jump­ing from 35% of all exe­cu­tions in 2024 to 67% of all exe­cu­tions in 2025; for­eign nation­als account­ed for 78% of all drug-relat­ed exe­cu­tions in Saudi Arabia in 2025. Executions for drug-relat­ed offens­es vio­late Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which only per­mits the death penal­ty for the ​“most seri­ous crimes.” Executions in 2025 for oth­er offens­es fail­ing to meet the thresh­old of a ​“most seri­ous crime” includ­ed rape, sex­u­al rela­tion­ships out­side of mar­riage, blas­phe­my, and economic crimes. 

Forty-eight coun­tries imposed 2,334 new death sen­tences in 2025. Amnesty International notes that year-on-year com­par­isons for the glob­al total are ​“method­olog­i­cal­ly chal­leng­ing” due to dif­fer­ences in avail­able coun­try-lev­el data. Four coun­tries (Belarus, Botswana, Ghana, Uganda) that imposed death sen­tences in 2024 did not in 2025. Notably, this year marked the first year no new death sen­tences or exe­cu­tions were record­ed since Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko assumed office in 1994; Belarus remains the only European nation to retain the death penal­ty. Six oth­er coun­tries (Bahrain, Comoros, Gambia, Maldives, Qatar, Taiwan) imposed new death sen­tences after a hia­tus. In 2025, 16 coun­tries imposed at least 249 death sen­tences for drug-relat­ed offens­es; these account­ed for all new death sen­tences imposed in Laos and Singapore, 82% of all new death sen­tences imposed in Indonesia, and 72% of all new death sen­tences imposed in Vietnam. At the end of 2025, at least 25,508 peo­ple remain under sen­tence of death world­wide, with 36% of them in the Asia-Pacific region. 

Although no coun­try abol­ished the death penal­ty in 2025, move­ment towards abo­li­tion was evi­dent in sev­er­al coun­tries. Both Vietnam and Gambia lim­it­ed the num­ber of death penal­ty-eli­gi­ble offens­es. In Lebanon and Nigeria, abo­li­tion bills were pend­ing before the leg­is­la­ture. The Constitutional Court of Kyrgyzstan found efforts by the President to rein­tro­duce the death penal­ty to be uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. On the oth­er hand, some abo­li­tion­ist coun­tries, such as Chad and Peru, also estab­lished com­mis­sions to eval­u­atere­in­stat­ing the death penal­ty, and leg­is­la­tion to expand the death penal­ty was either intro­duced or enact­ed in the Maldives, Myanmar, Algeria, Israel, Nigeria, Kuwait, Burkina Faso, and sev­er­al U.S. states. 

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Citation Guide
Sources

Press Release, Amnesty International Global Report: Death Sentences and Executions 2025, Amnesty International, May 17, 2026; Death Sentences and Executions in 2025, Amnesty International, May 17, 2026

Footnotes

  1. Excluding China, there were 3,191 record­ed in 1981.

  2. Amnesty International esti­mates that thou­sands are exe­cut­ed and sen­tenced to death in China annu­al­ly, how­ev­er, it stopped report­ing min­i­mum fig­ures for the nation in 2009 due to con­cerns about author­i­ties mis­rep­re­sent­ing their data.