Turkey was ranked 124th out of 182 countries and territories in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index 2025, scoring 31 points, below the Eastern Europe and Central Asia average of 34 and tied with Belarus, Uzbekistan, Djibouti, Mongolia and Niger, Turkish Minute reported.
Transparency International, a global anti-corruption group, publishes the index each year as a snapshot of how experts and businesspeople perceive corruption in the public sector, using a scale from zero, seen as highly corrupt, to 100, seen as very clean.
Turkey’s score fell three points from 34 in the previous index. Its rank slid as countries with similar scores moved ahead while Turkey dropped into a cluster of states scoring 31.
In the Middle East and North Africa region, the average score was 39, eight points above Turkey’s score.
Transparency International has said long-running declines in CPI scores often coincide with weaker democratic checks and balances, pressure on independent voices and institutions that lack the independence to hold power to account.
Turkey has dropped 71 places in the index since 2013, when it scored 50 points and was ranked 53rd.
Transparency International’s study can be considered proof that Turkey’s backsliding started in late 2013, when Turkey was shaken by two corruption investigations implicating then-prime minister and current president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s inner circle.
Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) government subsequently suppressed the corruption scandal by managing to control the judiciary, creating special criminal courts headed by a single judge thanks to the AKP’s parliamentary majority.
These judges then jailed all the police and prosecutors who had conducted the 2013 corruption investigations, while Erdoğan and his family members who were implicated have never appeared in court.
The erosion in the rule of law in Turkey worsened after a failed coup in July 2016, when more than 4,000 judges and prosecutors were removed under the pretext of an anti-coup fight.
The AKP government is accused of replacing the purged judicial members with young and inexperienced judges and prosecutors who have close links to the AKP.
In a development that confirmed the erosion of the Turkish judiciary, Turkey was ranked 118th out of 142 countries in the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index published in October 2025.
In 2025 the global CPI average dropped to 42. Denmark ranked first with a score of 89, followed by Finland with 88 and Singapore with 84, while Somalia and South Sudan were at the bottom with scores of nine, according to the index.
Transparency International also pointed to declines in several democracies, including the United States, which the index listed at 64, and said pressure on oversight and accountability can weaken efforts to curb corruption.
