Romania drinks more alcohol per person than any other country, followed by Georgia and Latvia, according to the most recent internationally comparable data, which draws on World Health Organization figures. The sources reviewed contain no country-by-country count of alcohol consumed in 2026 so far; the newest full dataset is a three-year average labeled 2022 that was retrieved from the WHO’s Global Health Observatory this year.
The ranking, published by The Facts Institute and updated on August 31, measures average annual recorded consumption per person aged 15 and older in liters of pure alcohol. On that measure, the ten heaviest-drinking countries are:
- Romania, 17.1 liters
- Georgia, 15.5 liters
- Latvia, 14.7 liters
- Moldova, 14.1 liters
- Czechia, 13.7 liters
- Lithuania, 12.2 liters
- Namibia, 12.0 liters
- Poland, 11.9 liters
- Austria, 11.8 liters
- Bulgaria, 11.5 liters
Belarus, Saint Lucia and Seychelles follow, tied at 11.4 liters each, according to the WHO figures in the Facts Institute table. World Population Review, which also treats 2022 as the most recent data available as of 2026, reports the same leaders: Romania at 17.1 liters, then Georgia at 15.5, Latvia at 14.7, Moldova at 14.1 and Czechia at 13.7. It says Lithuania, Poland, Bulgaria, Belarus, Hungary and Slovakia all reported annual consumption above 11 liters per person.
The gap between Romania and the global picture is wide. The Facts Institute noted that consumption above 14 liters of pure alcohol per person per year is roughly equivalent to about three standard bottles of wine per person each week. Because drinks vary in strength, the WHO measures pure alcohol rather than volumes of beer, wine or spirits. The site explained that a liter of wine, at about 12% alcohol by volume, contains roughly 0.12 liters of pure alcohol, so a person consuming 6 liters of pure alcohol a year would drink the equivalent of about 50 liters of wine, or about a liter a week.
Europe dominates the list. Central and Eastern European countries lead the rankings, and 22 of the top 30 countries are in Europe, according to the Facts Institute. Namibia, in seventh place with 12 liters, is the highest-ranked country outside Europe, and Seychelles and Saint Lucia also record some of the world’s highest levels, making them exceptions to the largely European pattern. World Population Review said beer, wine and spirits all play major cultural roles across much of Eastern and Central Europe, and that higher-income countries generally report higher consumption because alcohol is more affordable and widely available, though wealth alone does not determine drinking habits.
Several large economies sit just outside the top ten. According to the WHO table, Germany, France, Australia and Portugal each recorded 11.2 liters, the United Kingdom 10.9 liters, Russia 10.5 liters and the United States 9.8 liters. Russia, long associated with heavy drinking, has fallen well down the list, WorldRankd noted in a separate ranking. Canada recorded 10.0 liters, and Spain and Slovakia 11.0 liters each.
At the other end of the scale, consumption is close to zero in parts of North Africa and the Middle East, where religious and cultural norms discourage or prohibit drinking, the Facts Institute said. Yemen, Somalia, Bangladesh, Sudan, Mauritania, Libya, Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan and Kuwait are among the countries with the lowest recorded consumption, and Iran, Indonesia and Egypt also round to near zero.
The numbers are estimates, and the WHO publishes confidence intervals. Romania’s figure of 17.1 liters, for example, carries a range of 14.6 to 19.8 liters, and Georgia’s 15.5 liters ranges from 12.9 to 17.9. Those ranges overlap with countries lower on the list, which means the ordering among places with similar totals is not exact. That is why some countries share a rounded figure and why the Facts Institute listed 13 countries in its top group.
Different sources produce slightly different results. StatsPanda, which uses a World Bank series compiled from WHO data and includes estimated unrecorded consumption, puts Romania at 16.8 liters, Georgia at 14.4 liters and Latvia at 12.9 liters, using the latest available year from 2015 onward. Another ranking of 2025 data listed Latvia in fourth place at about 13.1 liters, followed by Uganda at 12.2 and Germany at 12.2, and it named Lithuania as tenth at 11.8 liters. Such differences reflect vintage, methodology and whether unrecorded, homemade or informal alcohol is counted.
The global context is lower. Worldwide annual consumption in 2019 was equal to 5.5 liters of pure alcohol per person aged 15 and older, down from 5.7 liters in 2010, according to the WHO figures summarized on Wikipedia. The WHO European Region had the highest regional average at 9.2 liters, followed by the Region of the Americas at 7.5 liters. About 44% of the population aged 15 and older were current drinkers in 2019. Alcohol use is estimated to cause about 2.6 million deaths a year worldwide, according to the WHO’s 2024 global report as cited by Statsipedia and the Facts Institute. The Facts Institute added that the countries that drink the most can suffer more alcohol-related health and social problems.
None of the sources reviewed included statements from health officials or the countries ranked, and the WHO’s own data has a lag of several years, so the list does not capture changes in drinking habits since 2022.
Readers looking for a 2026 tally will not find one in the sources reviewed. Until the WHO updates its indicator, the Romania-led list remains the most recent international snapshot of who drinks the most.
