ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s score on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) has risen by one point, but the latest figures also highlight questions about the data, methodology and extent to which international perceptions of corruption reflect the experiences of ordinary citizens.
Transparency International’s 2025 CPI, released in February 2026, assigned Pakistan a score of 28 out of 100 and placed it 136th among 182 countries. In the previous edition, Pakistan scored 27 and ranked 135th out of 180 countries.
The improvement in the score therefore did not translate into a better numerical position. Transparency International itself says the score is a more useful measure for comparison than rank because the number and performance of countries included in the index can change from year to year.
The CPI is not an audit of corruption, an investment rating or an IMF lending condition. It is a perception-based indicator of public-sector corruption and is used as one of several signals available to investors, businesses and international institutions when assessing governance and country risk.
The IMF’s 2025 Governance and Corruption Diagnostic for Pakistan found that weaknesses in governance and corruption have significant implications for investment and economic growth. Citing existing research, the IMF noted that a one-point improvement in CPI scores is associated with a 4% rise in a country’s investment rate, while stressing that such an association does not establish a direct causal relationship.
How Pakistan’s score was calculated
Pakistan’s CPI score was derived from eight external data sources. Transparency International uses 13 sources globally and requires at least three sources for each country.
The CPI does not directly survey Pakistani citizens. Instead, it combines assessments from experts and businesspeople using different methodologies.
Of Pakistan’s eight source scores, five remained unchanged from the previous year, two declined and one — V-Dem — recorded a significant increase.
Bertelsmann remained at 21, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) at 18, Global Insights at 32, PRS ICRG at 33 and the World Bank’s CPIA at 39. The World Economic Forum score slipped from 33 to 32, while the World Justice Project score fell from 26 to 25.
V-Dem, meanwhile, increased from 14 to 19.
The published whole-number figures add up to 219, producing an arithmetic average of 27.375, whereas Transparency International reports a final score of 28. This difference does not demonstrate an error because the organisation calculates the CPI using unrounded underlying figures. However, the precise unrounded source values and calculation are not publicly available, making it impossible to independently reproduce Pakistan’s exact score from the published rounded numbers alone.
That makes the five-point V-Dem increase particularly significant: it was the only substantial positive movement among Pakistan’s eight sources.
The V-Dem increase
V-Dem uses expert assessments combined with statistical modelling, and its datasets can be revised when new information or updated versions become available.
The available CPI data do not reveal precisely why Pakistan’s V-Dem score increased by five points. Questions include whether the change resulted from revised historical data, changes in the expert pool, underlying indicators or methodological adjustments.
The exact unrounded V-Dem figure supplied to Transparency International is also not publicly disclosed in the CPI dataset.
Transparency International referred detailed questions concerning the V-Dem change to V-Dem itself.
With seven of Pakistan’s eight published source scores either unchanged or lower, the V-Dem increase is the main source-level movement behind the improvement visible in the latest CPI data.
Different sources, different measurements
The eight assessments used for Pakistan are not based on a single survey or identical methodology.
The World Economic Forum relies on an executive opinion survey, while the World Justice Project combines household and expert information. Bertelsmann uses expert assessments and V-Dem combines expert coding with statistical modelling.
The EIU, Global Insights and PRS ICRG produce country-risk assessments, while the World Bank’s CPIA evaluates institutional performance.
These systems use different respondents, experts, analysts, indicators, timeframes and levels of disclosure. Transparency International standardises the scores before combining them into the CPI.
The use of equal weighting after standardisation is a methodological decision rather than proof of a flaw. It nevertheless raises a legitimate research question about how much weight should be given to measurements derived from fundamentally different forms of evidence.
Another issue is whether the eight sources can be considered statistically independent. Institutional independence does not necessarily mean that assessments are based on entirely separate information. Analysts may draw on similar court cases, government records, media reports, international developments or expert networks.
This does not establish duplication or bias, but it means that eight sources should not automatically be interpreted as eight completely independent observations.
The “2025” CPI does not represent one common year
The underlying assessments also do not necessarily cover the same period.
Some sources may rely on information from 2024, others on specific portions of 2025, while some assessments incorporate evidence accumulated over longer periods. As a result, the CPI labelled “2025” should not be interpreted as eight simultaneous measurements of corruption throughout the 2025 calendar year.
This also means that linking a one-point annual change directly to a particular government, policy or reform may be misleading because changes can take different amounts of time to appear in individual source assessments.
Reproducibility remains an issue
Transparency International publicly explains how it selects, standardises and combines its sources. However, some underlying information is private or proprietary.
There is consequently a difference between understanding the methodology and being able to independently reproduce every country-level result.
A fuller independent assessment would require access to detailed country-level datasets, assessment dates, respondent and expert profiles, sample sizes, response rates, weighting procedures, missing-data treatment, unrounded scores and information about changes to expert pools or methodologies.
Domestic surveys tell a different story
Pakistan’s own corruption surveys measure a different dimension of the issue.
Transparency International Pakistan (TIP) conducts the National Corruption Perception Survey (NCPS) separately and has clarified that it does not collect the data or calculate Pakistan’s score in the global CPI.
The 2025 NCPS surveyed 20 districts across all four provinces and recorded 3,989 completed responses. Police were identified as the most corrupt sector by 24% of respondents, followed by tendering and procurement at 16% and the judiciary at 14%.
The survey found that 66% of respondents had not paid a bribe for a public service during the previous 12 months, while 77% expressed dissatisfaction with government efforts to combat corruption.
TIP also changed its sampling approach in 2025, moving from non-probability convenience sampling to a multistage stratified cluster design.
Approximately 1,000 respondents were allocated to each province, with participants selected at locations including markets, parks, government offices and community gathering points.
However, the published methodology does not provide sufficient detail on individual selection within those locations, refusals, replacements or selection probabilities. Equal allocation among provinces also requires appropriate weighting to produce a population-representative national estimate because the provinces differ considerably in population size.
The publicly available methodology does not contain enough information to fully reproduce the national weighting and selection process.
Court ruling highlights importance of survey transparency
A previous judicial ruling illustrates why methodological transparency is important when corruption surveys are used to draw public conclusions.
In April 2024, the Peshawar High Court directed Transparency International Pakistan to recall and republish its 2023 National Corruption Perception Survey after examining findings related to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa judiciary.
The court found shortcomings in the survey’s ethical and methodological rigour and questioned the credibility of findings concerning the KP judiciary.
It also examined the treatment of responses concerning bribe payments. TIP had reported 760 respondents who said they had paid a bribe, while the court raised questions about another 788 responses that it said had not been adequately explained.
The court described the issue as a significant data-analysis problem affecting the reliability and validity of the relevant finding. It also criticised the failure to clearly distinguish between perception and reality.
TIP was directed to recall the report and publish a revised version containing the relevant data and public-opinion ratios.
The judgment does not establish that TIP’s 2025 survey suffers from the same deficiencies. The 2025 survey uses a substantially revised methodology. The ruling does, however, demonstrate the importance of transparent sampling, response handling and data analysis.
A larger sample is not enough on its own
The 2025 NCPS expanded its sample to nearly 4,000 respondents. A larger sample can reduce sampling error, but it does not automatically eliminate selection bias.
TIP cites an approximately
three-percentage-point margin of error and uses a cluster-based design. Assessing the reliability of the national estimate independently, however, would also require information about design effects, weighting and respondent selection probabilities.
Some individual questions also have fewer responses than the headline total of 3,989. The published material does not prominently identify missing responses for every question or fully explain how those responses were treated.
These gaps do not establish manipulation. They indicate that the publicly available material is not sufficient for an independent survey specialist to completely reproduce every national estimate.
Perception and personal experience are not the same
A separate survey provides another perspective.
The Index of Transparency and Accountability in Pakistan (iTAP), produced by Ipsos and the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI), was based on fieldwork conducted in December 2025 and January 2026.
More than 6,000 respondents were surveyed across 82 urban and rural districts and more than 195 tehsils, alongside a separate sample of roughly 300 respondents from government institutions.
The survey found that 68% believed bribery was common in public institutions, while 27% said they had personally faced a demand for a bribe.
Similarly, 56% considered nepotism widespread, compared with 24% who reported personally experiencing favouritism that undermined merit.
While 59% believed public officials became wealthy through illegal means, only 5% said they had personally witnessed such illicit enrichment.
The figures illustrate the difference between general perceptions and direct personal experiences. Neither type of measurement is directly interchangeable with the CPI.
What the CPI does — and does not — tell us
Describing Pakistan simply as the “136th most corrupt country” can obscure what the CPI actually measures.
A score of 28 does not mean that 28% of Pakistanis are corrupt, that 28% of public funds are stolen or that a particular percentage of citizens have paid bribes.
The CPI is a perception-based indicator of public-sector corruption.
At the same time, dismissing the index solely because it measures perceptions would also overlook its relevance. The IMF’s governance diagnostic identified vulnerabilities in areas including public financial management, procurement, regulation, accountability and the rule of law, and linked governance weaknesses with economic performance and private-sector development.
The more relevant question is therefore how much confidence should be placed in the indicator and how transparently its underlying evidence can be examined.
Economic relevance
Investors, lenders and financial institutions do not rely on the CPI alone when evaluating Pakistan. Economic conditions, political developments, financial stability and institutional performance also contribute to assessments of country risk.
Nevertheless, corruption and governance indicators can influence how international stakeholders perceive the business and investment environment.
That gives the CPI significance beyond a headline ranking. Greater access to source-level information would allow researchers, policymakers and the public to better understand the evidence behind movements in Pakistan’s score.
Transparency International’s response
Transparency International was asked a series of detailed questions about Pakistan’s 2025 CPI.
On the increase from 27 to 28, the organisation referred to its technical methodology but did not provide the unrounded scores or exact calculation used for Pakistan. It confirmed that V-Dem was the only source showing a positive change, while WJP and WEF recorded slight declines.
Transparency International also said Pakistan’s historical changes in the CPI have not been statistically significant and described the country’s five-year trend as “stagnant”, with Pakistan remaining in the bottom quartile.
The organisation confirmed that it had not conducted a sensitivity analysis removing V-Dem from the calculation. It said the CPI incorporates all available source data rather than testing alternative scores by excluding individual observations.
On the different methodologies used by the eight sources, Transparency International said they all measure aspects of public-sector corruption and are highly correlated, citing an independent statistical audit by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre.
It said formal statistical independence cannot be tested because of confidentiality constraints and that methodological diversity is used as a proxy.
Transparency International also said individual country scores cannot be reproduced in isolation because the rescaling process depends on global means and standard deviations. However, it said the complete CPI has been independently reproduced and statistically audited by the European Commission.
On the CPI’s scope, Transparency International acknowledged that it is a perception-based proxy rather than a direct measure of actual corruption. It said the index does not capture areas such as illicit financial flows, private-sector corruption, money laundering or citizens’ direct experiences and perceptions.
The organisation also said the CPI does not assess individual government institutions, meaning the latest score cannot be used to identify a specific Pakistani institution responsible for the improvement.
Conclusion
Pakistan’s latest CPI score shows a one-point increase, but the underlying data present a more nuanced picture.
Seven of the eight published source scores were either unchanged or lower, while V-Dem recorded a five-point increase. Pakistan’s overall score has also remained within a relatively narrow range over recent years: 28 in 2021, 27 in 2022, 29 in 2023, 27 in 2024 and 28 in 2025.
The available evidence does not establish that Transparency International manipulated the CPI or that Transparency International Pakistan manipulated its domestic survey.
Instead, the data demonstrate that different measurement systems capture different aspects of corruption. The CPI assesses expert and business perceptions of public-sector corruption; the NCPS measures domestic perceptions; and iTAP combines perceptions with reported personal experiences.
The central issue, therefore, is not simply whether Pakistan moved from 27 to 28.
It is how that change was generated, what evidence lies behind the underlying assessments, how independently those measurements can be verified, and how closely international perceptions correspond with the experiences of people dealing with public institutions in Pakistan.
