Israel moved up five spots in Transparency International's 2022 Global Corruption Index, ranking as the 31st-most transparent country in the world. 

The report, published on Tuesday morning, showed that Israel scored 63 out of 100 – an increase from 2021’s 59/100 score. The increase also reverses a five-year downtrend in Israel’s corruption score.

Israel's significant improvement in the 2022 index resulted in Israel gaining significant distance from countries hovering around 50 points or less, which typically denotes countries perceived as politically corrupt, such as Hungary, Poland and Turkey.

What countries are the most, and least, corrupt?

Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Tehran, Iran July 19, 2022. (credit: PRESIDENT WEBSITE/WANA (WEST ASIA NEWS AGENCY)/HANDOUT VIA REUTERS)
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Tehran, Iran July 19, 2022. (credit: PRESIDENT WEBSITE/WANA (WEST ASIA NEWS AGENCY)/HANDOUT VIA REUTERS)
Hungary, which is led by far-right politician Viktor Orban, scored 42 out of 100, while Poland scored just 35 out of 100. Turkey and Russia, both of which are led by authoritarian figures, scored a meager 28 points out of 100 in the 2022 corruption index, while China scored 45 out of 100. The average score of the 180 countries ranked was 42/100.

Somalia ranked in last place with a score of 12, while Syria and South Sudan scored 13 out of 100. Venezuela with 14 and Yemen with 16 rounded out the bottom five most corrupt countries in this year’s report.

On the other end of the spectrum, Denmark was the most transparent country with a score of 90/100. New Zealand and Finland followed closely, as they tied for second place with 87 points. Norway (84), Singapore (83) and Sweden (83) rounded out the top five most transparent countries.

Countries that had a similar score to Israel include the United Arab Emirates and Chile, who each earned a score of 67, Estonia (74), the USA (69), South Korea (63), Portugal (62) and Spain (60). Iran scored just 25 out of 100 on the index.

Transparency International's Global Corruption Index

Founded in 1993 by former employees of the World Bank, Transparency International is a nonprofit that aims to combat global corruption. Transparency International has published the Global Corruption Index since 1995, though their results have been criticized, as measuring corruption is difficult by nature.