Trust in national government has stabilised across OECD countries following an earlier decline, according to a new OECD report, the OECD Survey on Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions 2026 Results. It shows that 40% of people surveyed in OECD countries report high or moderately high trust in their national government, on average, while 43% continue to report low or no trust.
This latest OECD Trust Survey, covering 33 OECD countries and, for the first time, five accession candidate countries, also finds that trust in the police, courts, local government and the civil service tends to be significantly higher than trust in national government. Trust continues to be lower among women, younger adults, and people with low levels of formal education, on average across countries, with trust gaps by education widening substantially since 2021.
The report finds that an important driver of trust is whether people feel they have a voice in political decision making. Across countries, there is a 47 percentage point gap in trust between people who feel the political system gives them a say and those who do not, a gap that has remained largely unchanged in recent years. Today, while 68% believe that voting influences what government does, the foundation of democratic governance, only 31% believe that people like them have a say in government decisions. This suggests that voting alone is no longer sufficient for citizens to feel heard.
“People trust the public services they count on every day, but are less confident about government’s ability to tackle long-term challenges, and they don’t feel heard,” said OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann. “To protect and build trust, governments need to open up genuine opportunities to participate, increase transparency, ground decisions in evidence, and make sure new technology earns people’s confidence.”
An average of 54% of recent users are satisfied with their healthcare system interactions, 60% with the education system and 68% with public administrative services. However, people are significantly less confident in governments’ ability to balance competing interests fairly, take difficult long-term decisions, and prepare societies for future challenges, all key drivers of trust in the national government.
The report also includes new evidence on the perceptions of the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the public sector. While more than four in ten people believe that AI could help governments improve services or reduce costs, fewer are confident that governments will ensure appropriate safeguards, including fairness, transparency, privacy protection and effective human oversight.
The next OECD Global Forum on Building Trust and Reinforcing Democracy on the theme ‘Government Unstuck: resilient Democracies in a Fast-Changing World,” taking place on 12-13 October in Paris, France, will draw on the results of the OECD Trust Survey.
The 33 OECD participating countries were: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. The 5 accession countries were: Bulgaria, Brazil, Croatia, Peru and Romania.
Working with over 100 countries, the OECD is a global policy forum that promotes policies to preserve individual liberty and improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world.
