Incarceration

The Countries That Imprison The Most Foreigners

Monaco is the country with the highest share of foreign prisoners, according to the latest figures from the World Prison Brief, at a staggering 92.3 percent. This can at least partly be attributed to the fact that Monaco is the second smallest country in the world, after the Vatican, and foreign residents make up three quarters of the Principality’s total population. According to Monaco Now, there are around 38,000 foreign nationals living in the country, compared with less than 9,000 Monegasques that have citizenship. This trend is similar in the UAE and Liechtenstein, both small countries with large foreign populations, which come in second and third with an 87.8 and 83.3 percent foreign share of inmates respectively. By comparison, just 7.3 percent of the US prison population is foreign.

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This chart shows foreign prisoners as a percentage of the total prison population.

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Countries with the largest share of foreign prisoners as of May 2025
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Foreign prisoners as percentage of total prison population in South America as of 2021, by country
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Foreign prisoners as percentage of total prison population in selected Caribbean countries as of 2024
Countries with the highest number of prisoners as of February 2026 (in 1,000s)
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Foreign prisoners as percentage of total prison population in selected countries in Latin America and the Caribbean as of 2022
Countries with the largest number of prisoners per 100,000 of the national population, as of March 2026

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