Asia · Southern Asia

Iran

High confidence

Verified 20 May 2026 · Data dated 1 Jan 2020

Fresh · 1mo ago

Highest known per-capita execution rate in the world; multiple major facilities for political prisoners.

Data is aggregated from public sources and may be incomplete or out of date.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

189,000

Year: 2020

Rate per 100,000

228

Per 100,000 residents

Occupancy

153%

Severely overcrowded

Pre-trial / remand

25.1%

Share not yet sentenced

Female prisoners

3.1%

Foreign nationals

2.9%

Conditions risk — across 234 facilities

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

—

national average

234 unknown

retentionist on capital punishment. Last known execution: 2025.Methods: hanging, stoningICCPR-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
251
2020
246
2021
314
2022
576
2023
853
2024
972

Source: Amnesty International + Cornell Death Penalty Worldwide.

1 documented human-rights cases →

How Iran compares

vs Asia (16) & global averages

Rate per 100,000this: 228 · region: 159 · global: 214

Occupancy ratethis: 153% · region: 148% · global: 125%

Pre-trial sharethis: 25% · region: 34% · 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: 158,000+19.6% over 19y2020: 189,000

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

Conditions inside Evin and Qarchak hard to verify independently.

Reform in Iran

All reform →

Laws, programmes, and pilots changing how Iran incarcerates — plus relevant research.

Drug-trafficking penalty amendments2017–ongoing
sentencing · active
A 2017 amendment to Iran's anti-drug law raised the quantity thresholds for the mandatory death penalty for drug offences. Sentences for thousands of prisoners on death row for drug offences were reviewed.

—

Held

—

See all 234 prisons in Iran →

Data completeness

100%

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

National population: 83,020,0002020
Source-verified: 20 May 2026
Source links: 2 cited

Sources

Direct citations for the figures on this page.

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

ISO 3166-1 alpha-3: IRN