Global Daily Tax News, OECD Tax Burdens Hit Record High In 2024, (Dec 15, 2025)

The OECD's newly released annual Revenue Statistics report shows that the tax-to-GDP ratio among OECD countries reached a record level in 2024, with countries implementing tax hikes to respond to short-term and long-term spending pressures.

In 2024, the average tax-to-GDP ratio of OECD countries increased by 0.4 percentage points (p.p.) to 34.1 percent, up from 33.7 percent – the first annual increase since 2021 for the 38 countries included in the report.

Across OECD countries, tax-to-GDP ratios ranged from 18.3 percent in Mexico to 45.2 percent in Denmark in 2024. Tax-to-GDP ratios increased from the previous year in 22 of the 36 countries for which preliminary data is available, declined in 13 countries, and remained unchanged in one.

The largest increase in 2024 was observed in Latvia, where the tax-to-GDP ratio rose by 2.4 p.p. due to higher revenues as a share of GDP from personal income tax (PIT), social security contributions, and corporate income tax (CIT). The second-largest increase was in Slovenia, where tax revenues rose by 1.9 p.p. as a result of higher social security contributions.

The largest decline in the tax-to-GDP ratio in 2024 occurred in Colombia, of 2.2 p.p. This was primarily due to a decline in CIT revenues. Korea and Norway also recorded declines of larger than 1 p.p.

Over the longer term, 31 OECD countries reported higher tax-to-GDP ratios in 2024 than in 2010, with the largest increases in the Slovak Republic (7.7 p.p.), Japan (7.5 p.p.) and Greece (7.4 p.p.). Among the remaining seven countries, Ireland's tax-to-GDP ratio was 6.0 p.p. lower in 2024 than in 2010 while Hungary's was 2.5 p.p. lower.

In 2023, the latest year for which final tax revenue data is available for all OECD countries, social security contributions accounted for the largest share of tax revenues in the OECD, at 25.5 percent, on average, while revenues from PIT accounted for the second-largest share, at 23.7 percent.

VAT accounted for just over one-fifth of total revenues (20.5 percent), with other consumption taxes generating a further 10.8 percent. CIT accounted for 11.9 percent of total tax revenues in 2023, with property taxes (5.1 percent) and residual taxes accounting for the remainder.

Between 2022 and 2023, the average share of income tax revenues (PIT and CIT combined) in total tax revenues declined by 0.1 p.p. to 36.4 percent, with the share of PIT in total tax revenues increasing over this period while the share of CIT declined. In 2023, the average share of social security contributions in the OECD average tax structure increased by 0.7 p.p. while the share of tax revenues from taxes on goods and services decreased by 0.3 p.p.

A Special Feature in the publication examines the proportion of PIT revenue that comes from different sources of individual income in OECD countries. Based on information provided for the first time by 29 countries for this edition of OECD Revenue Statistics and a methodology developed by the European Commission, the Special Feature compares across countries the relative importance of PIT revenue levied on income from employed labor, capital, self-employment, and pensions and social transfers. It also examines how the respective shares have evolved over time, thereby shedding light on the drivers behind increases in PIT revenue both within the average tax mix for OECD countries and as a share of GDP.

The OECD said, "By disentangling PIT revenue according to the different income sources, this Special Feature facilitates analysis of the redistributive impact PIT systems as well as their interaction with the broader economy. This information, provided through indicators such as the implicit tax rates on different sources of income and the elasticity of PIT revenue, can in turn inform the design of policies to make PIT systems more adaptive to changes in the economy or more robust to shocks. It can also be used to enhance the reporting of PIT revenue in international revenues classifications."

The Special Feature shows that employed-labor income accounted for the majority of PIT revenue in all 29 countries in 2023, while the prominence of the other income sources varied across countries. Revenue from employed-labor income nonetheless fell as a share of total PIT revenue in two-thirds of the countries between 2011 and 2023, while the share of capital income and self-employed income in total PIT revenue increased in 18 countries and 15 countries, respectively. The share of social transfers and pensions in overall PIT revenue increased in 12 countries and declined in 13. However, PIT revenue from employed-labor income increased as a share of GDP in 18 of the 29 countries between 2011 and 2023.