How many people are imprisoned in Egypt?

Egypt's prison population is 120,000 people. This figure aggregates all forms of detention counted by the source: sentenced prisoners, pre-trial detainees, and administrative detentions.

What is the incarceration rate in Egypt?

Egypt's incarceration rate is approximately 113 people per 100,000 population.

How many prisons are there in Egypt?

World Prisons indexes 93 individual facilities in Egypt. Each entry links to a detail page with contact information, capacity, oversight reports, and known conditions.

All countries

Africa · Northern Africa

Egypt

Q: Does Egypt have the death penalty?

Egypt's death-penalty status is: retentionist. Seeded from Amnesty International 2024 categorisation + Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide.

High confidence

Verified 20 May 2026 · Data dated 1 Jan 2022

Aging · 3mo ago

Egypt does not publish a consolidated annual figure. WPB estimate based on combined Ministry of Interior and National Security Agency facilities.

Compare Egypt World Prison Brief page

Data is aggregated from public sources and may be incomplete or out of date. Always verify with primary sources before acting on any figure. See data sources.

Prison population

120,000

Year: 2022

Rate per 100,000

113

Per 100,000 residents

Occupancy

207.3%

Severely overcrowded

Pre-trial / remand

33.3%

Share not yet sentenced

Female prisoners

3.7%

Foreign nationals

Figures from official sources · verified 20 May 2026 · methodology

Conditions risk — across 93 facilities

Average of our computed Conditions Risk Score across the country's facilities. Methodology · Browse highest-risk

—

national average

93 unknown

retentionist on capital punishment. Last known execution: 2024.Methods: hangingICCPR-OP2 (death-penalty abolition protocol): not a signatory

Seeded from Amnesty International 2024 categorisation + Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide.

Executions by year (Amnesty International)

2019
32
2020
107
2021
83
2022
24
2023
8
2024
8

Source: Amnesty International + Cornell Death Penalty Worldwide.

How Egypt compares

vs Africa (8) & global averages

Rate per 100,000this: 113 · region: 207 · global: 214

Occupancy ratethis: 207% · region: 151% · global: 125%

Pre-trial sharethis: 33% · region: 35% · global: 32%

The vertical ticks mark the global (grey) and regional (amber) means. Bars are clipped at the high end for readability.

Prison population over time

Annual figures, latest survey year

2001: 56,587+101.5% over 19y2020: 114,000

Source: World Prison Brief / unodc

What we know — and don't

Transparency about the boundaries of this data. Click sources where linked.

What we don't know

True figure is widely believed substantially higher when administrative detention is included.

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Held

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See all 93 prisons in Egypt →

Data completeness

100%

Score based on how many fields are populated. We surface this so you know where the gaps are.

National population: 106,160,0002022
Source-verified: 20 May 2026
Source links: 3 cited

Sources

Direct citations for the figures on this page.

Primary reference
World Prison Brief (ICPS, Birkbeck) — Institute for Crime & Justice Policy Research
Amnesty International â country pages — Amnesty International
Human Rights Watch â World Report — Human Rights Watch
See /data-sources for our methodology.

ISO 3166-1 alpha-3: EGY

Cite this page

Under CC-BY-4.0. Include the URL and access date; the site is a living reference and entries can change.

APA

World Prisons. (2026). Egypt — prison statistics. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://worldprisons.com/countries/egypt

Chicago

"Egypt — prison statistics." World Prisons. Accessed August 30, 2026. https://worldprisons.com/countries/egypt.

BibTeX

@misc{worldprisons-egypt,
  author = {{World Prisons}},
  title = {Egypt — prison statistics},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://worldprisons.com/countries/egypt},
  urldate = {2026-08-30}
}