Rent or buy? These countries have the most renters vs. homeowners

Apr 30, 2021

With the collaboration of Statista.

An overview of Thun Castle in Switzerland.

Switzerland is a firmly rental society - where around two-thirds didn't own their homes in 2020/2021.

Image: Unsplash/Daniel Vogel

Martin Armstrong

Data Journalist, Statista

Our Impact

What's the World Economic Forum doing to accelerate action on Health and Healthcare Systems?

The Big Picture

Explore and monitor how Germany is affecting economies, industries and global issues

Stay up to date:

Switzerland

A report by the Statista Global Consumer Survey shows how many people rent or buy accommodation in different countries.
Switzerland and Germany are firmly rental societies, where around two-thirds didn't own their homes in 2020/2021.
It's a very different story in China and Russia where property ownership is very much the norm.

Location is famously everything when it comes to real estate, but as data from the Statista Global Consumer Survey shows, it's not just the price which is affected by where property is located. As this infographic shows, there are stark differences between countries when it comes to the share of people that rent or own their homes.

Discover

How is the World Economic Forum supporting the development of cities and communities globally?

Switzerland and Germany are firmly rental societies, where around two-thirds didn't own their homes in 2020/2021. It's a very different story in China and Russia where property ownership is very much the norm - 83 and 87 percent of the adults surveyed by Statista said they own their current home.

Share of survey respondents saying they rent or own their current accommodation.

Switzerland and Germany are firmly rental societies. Image: Statista

Accept our marketing cookies to access this content.

These cookies are currently disabled in your browser.

Don't miss any update on this topic

Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.

License and Republishing

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.