Q24N — Nicaragua ranked as the second most corrupt country in Latin America, surpassed only by Venezuela, and remains among the ten most corrupt countries in the world, according to the 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) published by Transparency International (TI).
The report assigned Nicaragua a score of 14 out of 100, using a scale where zero indicates the highest level of corruption and 100 the lowest. Nicaragua remains in the lower tier of the Latin American rankings, with a negative trend in the fight against corruption.
Nicaragua’s score was unchanged from 2024, placing it 175th out of 182 countries evaluated. In 2024, Nicaragua ranked 172nd, but the number of countries evaluated was also lower.
Meanwhile, Venezuela received a score of 10 out of 100, making it the most corrupt country in Latin America. These figures reflect a very high perception of public corruption and an institutional situation marked by repression and a lack of democratic controls.
Other countries that are among the most corrupt in the world are South Sudan and Somalia with 9 points; Yemen, Libya, and Eritrea with 13 points; Sudan with 14 points, the same as Nicaragua; and Syria, North Korea, and Equatorial Guinea tied with 15 points.
Failed and Co-opted Institutions
According to Transparency International, Nicaragua’s low score is due to the fact that the country, with its “failed and co-opted institutions,” remains mired in “corruption and entrenched criminal networks.”
The organization also emphasizes that Nicaragua—along with Venezuela and Haiti (16)—are once again the three countries with the lowest scores in the region, characterized by “high levels of repression, failed or co-opted institutions, and structural corruption.”
In Nicaragua, the sociopolitical crisis that began in April 2018 has steadily deepened. Following the November 2021 general elections, in which Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo were re-elected unopposed, the country intensified its repression of opposition members, journalists, activists, and civil society organizations.
Ortega and Murillo have also consolidated their control over all state institutions through constitutional reforms and the closure of democratic spaces. More than 5,500 organizations have been shut down, and hundreds of members of the clergy, social leaders, and journalists have been forced into exile or stripped of their citizenship.
The Situation in the Americas
With an average score of just 42 out of 100, the Americas show no progress in the fight against corruption, according to Transparency International.
Since 2012, 12 of the 33 countries in the region have worsened considerably; only the Dominican Republic, with 37 points, and Guyana, with 40, have registered significant improvements.
“Years of government inaction have eroded democracy and allowed transnational organized crime to grow, directly harming people by undermining human rights, public services, and security,” the organization stated.
They added that “corruption has allowed transnational organized crime to infiltrate the politics of countries like Mexico, with 27 points, Brazil, with 35, and Colombia, with 37, fostering impunity and injustice.”
Furthermore, in countries like Costa Rica (56 points) and Uruguay (73), which are considered the strongest democracies in Latin America and with the best results in the CPI, “they also suffer from violence fueled by corruption and organized crime.”