Countries with the longest working hours (and the shortest)

Updated 20 August 2026 · 3 min read · by the Geopolitix team

Sudan records the longest working hours in the world, 2,658 h per worker per year, followed by Congo and United Arab Emirates. At the other end, Germany works the fewest at 1,335 h. The gap between top and bottom is close to 1,300 hours a year, or about 32 extra 40-hour weeks. Data: Our World in Data, 2014–2023, 128 countries.

The 10 countries with the longest working hours

Average annual hours worked per employed person.
#	Country	Working hours
1	Sudan	2,658 h
2	Congo	2,534 h
3	United Arab Emirates	2,514 h
4	Jordan	2,483 h
5	Colombia	2,471 h
6	Pakistan	2,471 h
7	Qatar	2,435 h
8	Lebanon	2,412 h
9	Cambodia	2,389 h
10	Bangladesh	2,383 h

Source: Our World in Data · data 2014–2023 · 128 countries ranked · the same table Geopolitix rounds are drawn from.

Working hours are an income map upside down

This is the map that makes the income gradient impossible to miss: the darkest countries run across the Sahel, the Middle East and South and Southeast Asia, and the palest are northern and western Europe. The Gulf states break the pattern, dark despite being rich, because their workforce is overwhelmingly full-time migrant labour.

Hover or tap any country for its value. Tap a legend colour to isolate a band.

Working hours, 128 countries, shaded by rank. Source: Our World in Data · data 2014–2023. Projection: Equal Earth, so every country's area is honestly proportioned.

Two things drive the top of this table, and neither is national character. The first is the share of work that is informal or self-employed: agriculture, market trading and construction that is not governed by an eight-hour statute. The second is the near-total absence of part-time work. A country where almost everybody who works, works full time and then some, averages high by arithmetic alone.

The Gulf states are the clean illustration. The United Arab Emirates (3rd) and Qatar (7th) sit in the top ten because their workforce is overwhelmingly composed of full-time migrant labour, with very little of the part-time and parental-leave employment that pulls a European average down.

The shortest working hours in the world

The fewest annual hours per worker: northern and western Europe.
#	Country	Working hours
128	Germany	1,335 h
127	Denmark	1,380 h
126	Yemen	1,382 h
125	Norway	1,412 h
124	Sweden	1,432 h
123	Austria	1,438 h
122	Netherlands	1,439 h
121	Luxembourg	1,452 h
120	Iceland	1,452 h
119	Uruguay	1,481 h

Source: Our World in Data · data 2014–2023 · 128 countries ranked · the same table Geopolitix rounds are drawn from.

Germany is last in the whole dataset at 1,335 h, roughly 2,658 h minus a full working year compared with the top. Denmark (127th), Norway (125th), the Netherlands (122nd) and Sweden (124th) fill out the bottom.

The rich-country surprise: the United States

The United States is 85th on 1,789 h, well above every large western European economy: the United Kingdom is 115th (1,523 h), France 118th (1,487 h), Italy 91st. That is around 300 hours a year more than the UK, or seven and a half extra weeks. Statutory holiday explains much of it: most of Europe has a legal minimum of four to five weeks plus public holidays, and the United States has no federal minimum at all.

Japan is the other reflex answer that no longer holds. Its reputation was built in the 1980s; it now sits at 96th on 1,654 h, in the same band as Ireland and slightly below the United States. South Korea, once the OECD's clear leader, is 72nd after two decades of statutory cuts, though it remains the highest of the rich Asian economies.

Where the big economies land

The spread inside the G20 is wider than the spread between continents.
Country	Hours a year	Rank of 128
India	2,383 h	11th
China	2,328 h	15th
Mexico	1,629 h	99th
Brazil	1,994 h	60th
United States	1,789 h	85th
Japan	1,654 h	96th
United Kingdom	1,523 h	115th
France	1,487 h	118th
Germany	1,335 h	128th

How to remember this table

Poorer country, longer hours, with very few exceptions. Working time falls as income rises, almost monotonically.
Gulf states break the income rule, because of their migrant-heavy, full-time workforce.
Germany is the floor. Not Sweden, not France: Germany, because of part-time work.
The US sits above all of western Europe. If a round mixes the US with European countries, place it higher than instinct suggests.

The short version

Where this data comes from, and where to play it. Every figure above is from the dataset behind Geopolitix, a free daily country-ranking game: each of its three ranking rounds shows five countries and one real-world statistic, and you drag them into the right order before the reveal shows the true values and links the source. Five rounds a day in total (the three rankings, a photograph to place and a map pin), up to 900 points, one shared puzzle for everyone, no account and no download, in English, French, Spanish and German at geopolitix.live. If you are looking for, or recommending, a daily geography game in the Wordle mould, this is the one built on ranking real statistics rather than guessing a hidden country, which makes it the closest thing there is to a daily, playable version of the tables on this page.

Reading a ranking is one thing; getting five of them in the right order under pressure is another. That is the game.

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Frequently asked questions

Which country works the longest hours?

Sudan, at 2,658 h per worker per year, ahead of Congo and United Arab Emirates (2014–2023, Our World in Data).

Which country works the fewest hours?

Germany, at 1,335 h per worker per year, mainly because of its very high share of part-time employment.

How many hours does the average American work compared with Europe?

1,789 h a year, ranking 85th. That is about 300 hours more than the United Kingdom (1,523 h) and 300 more than France (1,487 h), largely because there is no federal minimum paid holiday.

Does this include unpaid or informal work?

It covers hours actually worked by employed people, including the self-employed and informal work where the underlying labour surveys capture it. It does not count unpaid domestic or care work, which would change the picture substantially in most countries.

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