Saudi Arabia on Global Transparency Indices: CPI, Freedom House, Environmental Rankings, and the Data Behind the Narrative

Saudi Arabia’s position on global transparency and governance indices tells a story that complicates both the kingdom’s self-narrative of rapid transformation and the simplistic criticisms that dismiss all progress as window dressing. The data shows a country that has made genuine and measurable improvements in some dimensions of governance—particularly economic management, business environment reform, and institutional capacity—while remaining among the world’s most restrictive regimes in political freedom, transparency, media access, and civic participation. As Riyadh prepares to host the most expensive World Expo in history, these rankings provide an evidence-based framework for assessing where the kingdom actually stands relative to international standards, rather than where it claims to stand or where its critics assume it stands.

Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index

Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) is the most widely referenced global measure of perceived public sector corruption. The index scores countries on a scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean) based on surveys and assessments from business executives, country analysts, and institutional experts.

Saudi Arabia’s CPI trajectory shows incremental improvement over the past decade. The kingdom scored 52 out of 100 in its most recent assessment, placing it in the middle tier of the global rankings—above the global median but well below the levels achieved by countries typically considered to have clean governance (the Nordic countries, New Zealand, and Singapore score in the 80-90 range). Saudi Arabia’s score positions it roughly comparable to countries like Italy, Malaysia, and Botswana—a mixed peer group that includes both developing economies and established democracies.

The CPI score reflects both genuine reforms and significant limitations. On the positive side, Saudi Arabia has implemented anti-corruption measures including the establishment of the Oversight and Anti-Corruption Authority (Nazaha), the 2017 Ritz-Carlton crackdown that the government characterized as a campaign against endemic corruption, and reforms to government procurement and financial management systems. The kingdom’s UNCAC (United Nations Convention Against Corruption) compliance has improved, and the government has engaged with international anti-corruption mechanisms.

On the limiting side, the CPI measures perceptions of corruption, and those perceptions are shaped by factors that Saudi Arabia’s governance model structurally limits—including media freedom, independent auditing, whistleblower protection, and civil society monitoring. In countries where the press cannot freely investigate corruption, where there is no independent judiciary to prosecute corrupt officials without political direction, and where transparency requirements are minimal, corruption may exist at levels that perception-based surveys cannot capture. The CPI’s methodology inherently struggles to assess corruption in opaque governance systems—a country with no visible corruption may simply be a country where corruption is invisible.

The 2017 Ritz-Carlton crackdown, which recovered approximately $106 billion in settlements according to government figures, illustrates this measurement challenge. The operation was simultaneously characterized as the most significant anti-corruption action in Saudi history and criticized as a political consolidation exercise that bypassed the rule of law. The settlements were negotiated without formal charges, judicial proceedings, or public transparency about the specific allegations against each individual. The funds recovered were directed to state coffers rather than to a restitution process overseen by an independent body. Whether this operation should improve or worsen perceptions of corruption in Saudi Arabia depends entirely on whether one views it as an anti-corruption measure or as an exercise of arbitrary power.

Freedom House: Freedom in the World

Freedom House’s annual “Freedom in the World” report provides perhaps the most unfavorable assessment of Saudi Arabia among major international governance indices. In its 2024 report, Saudi Arabia received a score of 8 out of 100—categorizing the kingdom as “Not Free” and placing it among the most politically restrictive countries on earth.

The score breaks down across several subcategories that illuminate where the kingdom’s governance model diverges most dramatically from democratic norms. On political rights, Saudi Arabia scores at the very bottom of the scale. There are no democratic elections. The Shura Council—the kingdom’s consultative body—is appointed by the king rather than elected by citizens. Political parties are banned. There is no formal mechanism for citizens to participate in the selection of their government or to hold officials accountable through electoral processes.

On civil liberties, the scores are similarly low. Freedom of expression receives among the lowest scores possible, reflecting the criminal prosecution of speech, the absence of independent media, and the systematic suppression of dissent. Freedom of association scores near zero, reflecting the ban on independent civil society organizations, labor unions, and political advocacy groups. The rule of law score reflects the absence of an independent judiciary, the use of the Specialized Criminal Court to prosecute speech offenses, and the documented use of torture and arbitrary detention.

Freedom House’s assessment has remained essentially unchanged throughout the Vision 2030 period. Despite the dramatic social liberalization—women driving, cinemas opening, entertainment expanding—the political freedom score has not meaningfully improved because the index measures political and civil rights that the social reforms do not address. This highlights the fundamental distinction between social modernization (which has been substantial) and political liberalization (which has not occurred).

The Freedom House score matters in the Expo 2030 context because it represents the assessment of one of the most influential governance monitoring organizations in the world. Participating countries, international organizations, and media outlets reference Freedom House data when framing their engagement with Saudi Arabia. A score of 8 out of 100 creates a narrative challenge that the kingdom’s communications apparatus must manage, particularly when the Expo’s theme—“The Era of Change: Together for a Foresighted Tomorrow”—implicitly promises transformation.

World Bank Governance Indicators

The World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) provide a more granular and, in some respects, more balanced assessment of Saudi governance across six dimensions: voice and accountability, political stability and absence of violence, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, and control of corruption.

Saudi Arabia’s performance across these dimensions is strikingly varied, illustrating the selective nature of the kingdom’s governance reforms.

On government effectiveness—which measures the quality of public services, the civil service, policy formulation and implementation, and the credibility of the government’s commitment to its stated policies—Saudi Arabia scores reasonably well. The kingdom’s ability to conceive, fund, and execute large-scale programs (the Riyadh Metro, King Salman International Airport, the entertainment sector transformation) demonstrates institutional capacity that many developing countries and some developed ones lack. Vision 2030’s completion of 674 out of 1,502 initiatives, with 85 percent of the remainder on track, reflects a governance apparatus that can translate strategic objectives into operational results.

On regulatory quality—which measures the ability of the government to formulate and implement sound policies and regulations that permit and promote private sector development—Saudi Arabia has shown marked improvement. The kingdom has climbed significantly in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business rankings, reflecting reforms in areas including company registration, construction permitting, property transfer, and investor protection. The new investment law (2024) and the new property ownership system for non-Saudis (2026) represent concrete regulatory improvements that are recognized by international business indices.

On political stability and absence of violence, Saudi Arabia scores moderately well in the regional context. Despite the kingdom’s involvement in the Yemen conflict and the security challenges in the broader Middle East, domestic political stability is maintained, and violent crime rates are low by international standards.

On voice and accountability, however, Saudi Arabia scores near the bottom of the global distribution. This dimension measures the extent to which citizens can participate in selecting their government, freedom of expression, freedom of association, and free media. The kingdom’s scores on this dimension reflect the same structural characteristics that drive the Freedom House assessment: the absence of democratic institutions, the suppression of dissent, and the control of media.

On rule of law—which measures the extent to which agents have confidence in and abide by the rules of society, including the quality of contract enforcement, property rights, the police, and the courts, as well as the likelihood of crime and violence—Saudi Arabia’s performance is mixed. Commercial and property law enforcement has improved as part of Vision 2030’s business environment reforms, but the absence of an independent judiciary, the use of the Specialized Criminal Court for political cases, and documented due process failures limit the overall score.

On control of corruption, Saudi Arabia’s scores show improvement but remain below the levels of countries with robust anti-corruption institutions and transparency mechanisms. The Nazaha oversight authority, the UNCAC compliance efforts, and the government’s anti-corruption rhetoric have contributed to improvements, but the structural limitations—particularly the lack of independent monitoring, media investigation, and civil society oversight—constrain the achievable score.

The Environmental Performance Index

The Environmental Performance Index (EPI), produced by Yale University and Columbia University, provides an assessment that is particularly relevant to Expo 2030 given the event’s emphasis on sustainability. Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 target was to reach 70th place in the EPI. The kingdom’s actual ranking of 108th represents one of the most significant shortfalls between ambition and achievement in the entire Vision 2030 scorecard.

The EPI score reflects Saudi Arabia’s challenges across multiple environmental dimensions. The kingdom is one of the world’s largest per capita carbon emitters, driven by its oil-based economy, extreme climate requiring intensive air conditioning, and water desalination needs. Renewable energy deployment has been one of the most significantly behind-schedule Vision 2030 targets. Water scarcity and the environmental impact of desalination, waste management, air quality in urban areas, and biodiversity protection all contribute to the low ranking.

The Expo 2030 site itself incorporates sustainability features including energy-efficient cooling systems, renewable power generation, adaptive reuse-ready designs, and the environmental regeneration of Wadi Al Sulai. These features represent genuine efforts to demonstrate sustainable development practices. However, they exist within the context of a broader environmental record that the EPI ranking suggests remains far from international best practice.

The gap between the kingdom’s environmental ambitions and its actual performance is one of the areas where international scrutiny during Expo 2030 is likely to be most pointed. The event’s sub-theme of “Sustainable Solutions” invites examination of the host country’s own sustainability record, and the EPI ranking provides a credible, third-party benchmark against which claims can be measured.

The Global Livability Ranking

Vision 2030 included a target of placing at least one Saudi city in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Global Livability Ranking—an index that measures cities across stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure. As of the most recent assessment, no Saudi city has achieved inclusion in the ranking. This represents a missed target that reflects both the genuine difficulty of meeting livability standards that are calibrated to cities like Vienna, Copenhagen, and Melbourne, and the specific dimensions where Saudi cities remain deficient.

The livability assessment incorporates dimensions that are directly affected by political governance—including cultural openness, educational quality, environmental conditions, and the availability of diverse lifestyle options. Some of these dimensions have improved markedly under Vision 2030: the entertainment sector has expanded dramatically, with Riyadh Season, cinemas, concerts, and Six Flags Qiddiya City creating cultural and recreational options that did not exist a decade ago. Infrastructure improvements, including the Riyadh Metro (operational since 2025 with 99.8 percent on-time performance), contribute to improved livability.

However, other dimensions remain constrained by the governance model. The restrictions on civic participation, the limitations on freedom of expression, the extreme heat conditions (which are beyond government control but affect livability scores), and the social restrictions that remain in place despite reforms all limit the kingdom’s livability scores.

Credit Ratings: The Financial Governance Signal

If the political and civic governance indices paint a challenging picture for Saudi Arabia, the financial governance signals tell a markedly different story. The kingdom’s credit ratings have been upgraded by all three major rating agencies in recent years: Moody’s upgraded Saudi Arabia to Aa3 in November 2024, S&P upgraded to A+ in March 2025, and Fitch affirmed A+ with a stable outlook in July 2025.

These ratings reflect the agencies’ assessment of Saudi Arabia’s fiscal management, economic diversification progress, debt sustainability, and institutional strength in the economic governance domain. The kingdom’s GDP of $1.27 trillion (2025), 4.5 percent growth rate, non-oil GDP share of 52 percent (highest in history), overall unemployment rate of 2.8 percent (lowest since records began in 1999), and inflation rate of 1.7 percent all contribute to a picture of sound macroeconomic management.

The credit ratings are significant because they represent the assessment of institutions—the rating agencies—whose primary concern is financial risk rather than political governance. The implicit message is that Saudi Arabia’s governance model, whatever its political deficits, produces fiscal outcomes that are among the strongest in the world. This creates a tension with the political governance indices: the same governance model that Freedom House rates at 8 out of 100 for political freedom produces an economy that the rating agencies consider among the most creditworthy in the world.

This tension is not unique to Saudi Arabia—China, Singapore, and several Gulf states present similar patterns of strong economic governance scores coexisting with low political freedom scores. But it is particularly pronounced in the Saudi case because of the scale of the kingdom’s ambitions and the intensity of the international scrutiny that accompanies those ambitions.

The Ease of Doing Business and Economic Competitiveness

Saudi Arabia has made significant gains in international business environment rankings, reflecting the extensive regulatory reforms implemented under Vision 2030. The kingdom has simplified company registration procedures, reduced the time and cost of obtaining construction permits, improved property registration systems, and strengthened investor protection mechanisms.

The PIF’s assets crossing $1 trillion in 2025, non-oil revenues increasing 113 percent from 2016 baseline to $137.29 billion, and private sector GDP contribution reaching 47 percent all reflect an economic governance environment that is increasingly attractive to international business. The new investment law (2024) and the property ownership reforms for non-Saudis (effective early 2026) further demonstrate regulatory responsiveness to investor needs.

These improvements are recognized by international business surveys and rankings, which show Saudi Arabia climbing in competitiveness assessments that measure factors like market access, regulatory efficiency, infrastructure quality, and macroeconomic stability. For the 197 countries and 29 international organizations participating in Expo 2030, the business environment scores matter because they influence decisions about investment, trade, and ongoing engagement with the Saudi economy.

The Index Paradox: What the Numbers Actually Tell Us

Taken together, Saudi Arabia’s performance across global transparency and governance indices reveals a paradox that is central to understanding the kingdom’s position as it approaches Expo 2030. The kingdom excels on indices that measure economic management, institutional capacity, business environment, and financial stability. It performs poorly on indices that measure political freedom, civic participation, transparency, media access, and human rights.

This pattern is not accidental—it reflects deliberate governance choices. The Saudi leadership has prioritized economic modernization and social liberalization while maintaining, and in many cases intensifying, political control. The indices confirm that this strategy has produced real results on the economic side: GDP growth, diversification, credit upgrades, job creation, and business environment improvement are all measurable and genuinely impressive. The indices also confirm that the political governance dimension has not improved: freedom of expression, political participation, judicial independence, and transparency remain at levels that place the kingdom among the most restrictive governance environments in the world.

For Expo 2030 participants and visitors, these indices provide an evidence-based alternative to both the promotional narrative that the Saudi government will present and the undifferentiated criticism that characterizes some international commentary. The truth, as the indices reveal, is more complex than either narrative allows. Saudi Arabia has genuinely transformed in ways that improve the lives of its citizens. Saudi Arabia also remains a country where a tweet can result in decades of imprisonment. Both of these statements are supported by the data, and both must be held simultaneously for an honest assessment of where the kingdom stands as it prepares to welcome the world.

What the Indices Cannot Measure

It is worth acknowledging what global indices cannot capture. They cannot measure the lived experience of Saudi citizens who are navigating a society in rapid transformation. They cannot quantify the significance of a Saudi woman driving to work for the first time, or a young Saudi attending a concert or movie for the first time. They cannot assess the aspirations of a generation that has known only the Vision 2030 era and for whom the kingdom’s transformation is not a geopolitical story but a personal reality.

Similarly, the indices cannot measure the fear of a dissident, the isolation of a political prisoner, or the calculation of a journalist deciding what to write and what to leave unsaid. They cannot capture the transnational dimensions of repression—the family members detained as leverage, the surveillance that follows exiles abroad, the knowledge that the boundaries of permissible speech are unmarked and enforced unpredictably.

What the indices can do is provide benchmarks—imperfect, contested, but consistently measured over time—that allow observers to track whether the kingdom’s trajectory is toward greater openness or toward more sophisticated control. As Expo 2030 approaches and the kingdom invites the world to Riyadh under the banner of “The Era of Change,” these benchmarks will serve as reference points for assessing whether the change the kingdom celebrates extends to the dimensions of governance that the indices measure and that its citizens experience daily.

The 42 million visitors expected at Expo 2030 will arrive in a country that the credit rating agencies consider among the world’s most financially sound, that Freedom House considers among the world’s most politically repressive, and that the Environmental Performance Index ranks far below its own stated ambitions. These are not contradictions—they are the multiple dimensions of a complex governance reality that cannot be reduced to a single score or narrative. The indices, for all their limitations, at least insist on that complexity.