CorruptionRadar
Country profile - IRN

Corruption in Iran

29 sub-national regions - 1995-2022. Latest country-level SCI: 47.2 (2022).

Grand: 32.1 Petty: 52.4 Latest observed: 2020

Iran: key corruption facts

The most corrupt region of Iran is Bushehr (41/100), and the least corrupt is Chaharmahal, Bakhtiyari, Kohgiluyeh, Boyerahmad (54.3/100), on a 0-100 scale where 0 is most corrupt and 100 is least. All 29 regions are ranked below.

  • In 2022, Iran's national Subnational Corruption Index (SCI) was 47.2/100, on a scale where 0 is the most corrupt and 100 the least corrupt.
  • Most corrupt region: Bushehr (SCI 41/100, 2022).
  • Least corrupt region: Chaharmahal, Bakhtiyari, Kohgiluyeh, Boyerahmad (SCI 54.3/100, 2022).
  • Grand corruption (SGCI): 32.1/100; petty corruption (SPCI): 52.4/100 (last directly observed in 2020).
  • Trend: Iran's SCI moved from 53.9/100 (1995) to 47.2/100 (2022).
  • Coverage: 29 regions, 1995–2022. Source: Subnational Corruption Database (Crombach & Smits, 2024, Nature Scientific Data), CC BY 4.0.

How Iran compares: SCD vs. the CPI and World Bank

The Subnational Corruption Index is scored 0–100 on the same orientation as Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index (higher = cleaner). The difference: the CPI and the World Bank measure the perceptions of experts and business executives and report one national number, while the SCI is built from what ordinary households perceive and experience — and it breaks Iran into 29 regions.

Index Latest Scale Based on
Subnational Corruption Index (SCI) 47.2 0–100 (100 = cleanest) Households — perception & experience
Transparency International CPI 25 0–100 (100 = cleanest) Experts & business surveys
World Bank Control of Corruption -1.1 ≈ −2.5 to 2.5 Aggregated expert sources

Most recent year — SCI 2022, CPI 2022, CCI 2022. The SCD also publishes region-anchored SUB-CPI and SUB-CCI series so the CPI and World Bank measures can be read at the regional level.

SCI trajectory - 1995-2022

Country-level mean of the Subnational Corruption Index, averaged across all 29 regions. Higher values mean cleaner governance (0 = most corrupt, 100 = least corrupt).

57 46 1995 2022

Source: SCD v1.0 (Comprehensive Dataset). Years where the panel was filled by inter/extrapolation are included in the country mean.

Regions (29)

Each row is a sub-national region with its latest SCI score. Click into any row for the region's full time series.

# Region GDL code Years Latest SCI
1 Bushehr IRNr119 1995-2022 41
2 Qazvin IRNr127 1995-2022 41.4
3 Markazi IRNr101 1995-2022 42
4 Kermanshah IRNr106 1995-2022 42.3
5 Khuzestan IRNr107 1995-2022 42.5
6 Mazandaran IRNr103 1995-2022 42.5
7 Tehran and Alborz IRNr124 1995-2022 42.8
8 Lorestan IRNr116 1995-2022 44.6
9 Esfahan IRNr111 1995-2022 45.4
10 Kerman IRNr109 1995-2022 45.5
11 Sistanand Baluchestan IRNr112 1995-2022 45.7
12 EastAzarbayejan IRNr104 1995-2022 46.5
13 Fars IRNr108 1995-2022 46.8
14 Hamedan IRNr114 1995-2022 46.9
15 Hormozgan IRNr123 1995-2022 47
16 Golestan IRNr128 1995-2022 47.6
17 Ilam IRNr117 1995-2022 47.7
18 Gilan IRNr102 1995-2022 48.1
19 Semnan IRNr121 1995-2022 48.3
20 North Khorasan IRNr129 1995-2022 48.4
21 Qom IRNr126 1995-2022 48.5
22 Yazd IRNr122 1995-2022 49.4
23 WestAzarbayejan IRNr105 1995-2022 49.7
24 Zanjan IRNr120 1995-2022 50.8
25 Khorasan-e-Razavi IRNr110 1995-2022 52.7
26 Ardebil IRNr125 1995-2022 53
27 South Khorasan IRNr130 1995-2022 53.8
28 Kordestan IRNr113 1995-2022 54.1
29 Chaharmahal, Bakhtiyari, Kohgiluyeh, Boyerahmad IRNr201 1995-2022 54.3

Download Iran

Per-country panel slice in CSV format. Columns: iso, country, gdl, region, year, sci. Direct dataset citations should reference the Figshare deposit (see How to cite).

Download IRN.csv