Women's Right to Vote by Country 2025

Women's Right to Vote

Yes

Women's Right to Vote

168 countries

Country↑	Women's Right to Vote	Additional Details	Suffrage Granted
Afghanistan	Yes	In 1929 tribal leaders overturned Khan's reforms to Sharia law with a monarchy and no voting rights for anyone for nearly 40 years. \| Women were once again granted voting rights in 1964 after a new constitution marked the next era of modern democracy.	1964
Albania	Yes	Limited women's suffrage was granted in 1920, and women obtained full voting rights in 1945	1945
Algeria	Yes		1962
Andorra	Yes		1970
Argentina	Yes		1947
Armenia	Yes		1919
Australia	Yes	Australian women, with the exception of aboriginal women, won the right to vote in 1902. Aborigines, male and female, did not have the right to vote until 1962.	1902
Austria	Yes		1918
Azerbaijan	Yes		1919
Bahrain	Yes		2002
Bangladesh	Yes		1972
Barbados	Yes		1951
Belarus	Yes		1919
Belgium	Yes	Women obtained the right to vote first with restrictions in 1919, and on equal terms with men in 1948. Women obtained the right to stand for elections in 1921.	1919
Belize	Yes		1954
Bhutan	Yes		1953
Bolivia	Yes	Limited women's suffrage in 1938 (only for literate women and those with a certain level of income). On equal terms with men since 1952.	1952
Bosnia and Herzegovina	Yes		1945
Botswana	Yes		1965
Brazil	Yes		1932
Bulgaria	Yes	Married women (and by default widowed women) gained the right to vote on January 18, 1937, in local elections, but could not run for office. Single women were excluded from voting. Full voting rights were bestowed by the communist regime in September 1944 and reaffirmed by an electoral law reform on June 15, 1945.	1944
Burkina Faso	Yes		1958
Cambodia	Yes		1955
Cameroon	Yes		1946
Canada	Yes	Canadian women, with the exception of Canadian Indian women, won the vote in 1917. Canadian Indians, male and female, did not win the vote until 1960.	1917
Cape Verde	Yes		1975
Central African Republic	Yes		1986
Chad	Yes		1958
Chile	Yes	From 1934 to 1949, women could vote in local elections at 25, while men could vote in all elections at 21. In both cases, literacy was required.	1949
China	Yes		1949
Colombia	Yes		1954
Costa Rica	Yes		1949
Croatia	Yes		1945
Cuba	Yes		1934
Cyprus	Yes		1960
Czech Republic	Yes	The Czechoslovak Constitution adopted on 29 February 1920 guaranteed the universal vote for every citizen including women to every electable body.	1920
Denmark	Yes	1908 at local elections, 1915 at national parliamentary elections.	1915
Dominica	Yes		1951
Dominican Republic	Yes		1942
DR Congo	Yes		1967
Ecuador	Yes	Despite that Ecuador granted women suffrage in 1929 differences between men's and women's suffrage in Ecuador were only removed in 1967 (before 1967 women's vote was optional, while that of men was compulsory; since 1967 it is compulsory for both sexes).	1929
Egypt	Yes		1956
El Salvador	Yes	Women obtained in 1939 suffrage with restrictions requiring literacy and a higher age. All restrictions were lifted in 1950 allowing women to vote, but women obtained the right to stand for elections only in 1961.	1950
Eritrea	No	There have not been elections in Eritrea since its independence in 1993.
Estonia	Yes		1917
Eswatini	Yes		1968
Ethiopia	Yes		1955
Fiji	Yes		1963
Finland	Yes		1906
France	Yes	The law was enacted in 1944, but the first elections were in 1945.	1944
Gabon	Yes		1956
Gambia	Yes		1960
Georgia	Yes		1918
Germany	Yes		1918
Ghana	Yes		1954
Greece	Yes	1930 - Local Elections, Literate Only; 1952 Unconditional	1952
Guatemala	Yes	Women could vote from 1945, but only if literate. Restrictions on women's suffrage were lifted in 1965.	1965
Guinea	Yes		1958
Guyana	Yes		1953
Haiti	Yes		1950
Honduras	Yes		1955
Hong Kong	Yes		1949
Hungary	Yes	After 1919 men could vote from the age of 24 while women only gained the right to vote from the age of 30. There were also educational and economical criteria set for both genders, but all criteria were higher for women. After 1945 both men and women gained universal suffrage from the age of 20.	1945
Iceland	Yes	1908 at local elections, 1915 at national parliamentary elections.	1915
India	Yes	In 1947, on its independence from the United Kingdom, India granted equal voting rights to all men and women.	1947
Indonesia	Yes	1937 (for Europeans only) 1945 (for all citizens, granted upon independence).	1945
Iran	Yes		1963
Iraq	Yes		1947
Ireland	Yes	From 1918, with the rest of the United Kingdom, women could vote at 30 with property qualifications or in university constituencies, while men could vote at 21 with no qualification. From separation in 1922, the Irish Free State gave equal voting rights to men and women.	1922
Israel	Yes	Women's suffrage was granted with the declaration of independence. But prior to that in the Jewish settlement in Palestine, suffrage was granted in 1920.	1948
Italy	Yes	Local elections in 1925. Full suffrage in 1945.	1945
Ivory Coast	Yes		1952
Jamaica	Yes		1944
Japan	Yes		1947
Jordan	Yes		1974
Kazakhstan	Yes		1993
Kenya	Yes		1963
Kiribati	Yes		1967
Kuwait	Yes	All voters must have been citizens of Kuwait for at least 20 years.	2005
Laos	Yes		1958
Latvia	Yes		1917
Lebanon	Yes	In 1957, a requirement for women (but not men) to have elementary education before voting was dropped, as was voting being compulsory for men.	1952
Lesotho	Yes		1965
Liberia	Yes		1946
Libya	Yes	From 1951 women could vote on local elections.	1963
Lithuania	Yes		1918
Luxembourg	Yes		1919
Madagascar	Yes		1959
Malawi	Yes		1961
Malaysia	Yes		1955
Maldives	Yes		1932
Mali	Yes		1956
Malta	Yes		1947
Marshall Islands	Yes		1979
Mauritania	Yes		1961
Mauritius	Yes		1956
Mexico	Yes		1947
Micronesia	Yes		1979
Moldova	Yes		1993
Mongolia	Yes		1924
Montenegro	Yes		1945
Morocco	Yes		1963
Mozambique	Yes		1975
Myanmar	Yes		1922
Namibia	Yes	At independence from South Africa.	1989
Nepal	Yes		1951
Netherlands	Yes		1949
New Zealand	Yes		1893
Nicaragua	Yes		1955
Niger	Yes		1948
Nigeria	Yes		1958
North Korea	Yes		1946
North Macedonia	Yes		1945
Norway	Yes		1913
Oman	Yes		1994
Pakistan	Yes		1947
Palau	Yes		1979
Palestine	Yes	Women (and men) first voted in local elections in the West Bank in 1972. Women (and men) first elected a Palestinian parliament in 1996. However, the last general election was in 2006; there was supposed to be another in 2014 but elections have been delayed indefinitely.	1972
Panama	Yes	Limited women's suffrage from 1941 (conditioned by level of education) equal women's suffrage from 1946.	1946
Papua New Guinea	Yes		1964
Paraguay	Yes		1961
Peru	Yes		1955
Philippines	Yes	Filipino women voted in a 1937 plebiscite for their right to vote; women first voted in local elections later that year.	1937
Poland	Yes		1918
Portugal	Yes	With restrictions in 1911, later made illegal again until 1931 when it was reinstated with restrictions, restrictions other than age requirements lifted in 1976	1976
Qatar	Yes	While required by the constitution, general elections had been repeatedly delayed. Municipal elections have been held often.	1997
Republic of the Congo	Yes		1963
Romania	Yes	Starting in 1929, women who met certain qualifications were allowed to vote in local elections. After the Constitution from 1938, the voting rights were extended to women for general elections by the Electoral Law 1939. Women could vote on equal terms with men, but both men and women had restrictions, and in practice the restrictions affected women more than men. In 1946, full equal voting rights were granted to men and women.	1946
Russia	Yes		1918
Saint Kitts and Nevis	Yes		1951
San Marino	Yes		1959
Saudi Arabia	Yes	In December 2015, women were first allowed to vote and run for office. However, there are no national elections in Saudi Arabia. The country is an absolute monarchy.	2015
Senegal	Yes		1945
Serbia	Yes		1945
Seychelles	Yes		1948
Sierra Leone	Yes		1961
Singapore	Yes		1947
Slovakia	Yes		1920
Slovenia	Yes		1945
Solomon Islands	Yes		1974
South Africa	Yes	1930 (European and Asian women) \| Women of other races were enfranchised in 1994, at the same time as men of all races.	1994
South Korea	Yes		1948
Spain	Yes	Women briefly held the right to vote from 1924 to 1926, but an absence of elections mean they never had the opportunity to go to the polls until 1933, after earning the right to vote in the 1931 Constitution passed after the elections. The government fell after only two elections in which women could vote, and no one would vote again until after the death of Francisco Franco.	1931
Sri Lanka	Yes		1931
Sudan	Yes		1964
Suriname	Yes		1948
Sweden	Yes		1921
Switzerland	Yes	Women obtained the right to vote in national elections in 1971. Women obtained the right to vote at local canton level between 1959 (Vaud and Neuchâtel in that year) and 1972, except for 1989 in Appenzell Ausserrhoden and 1990 in Appenzell Innerrhoden.	1971
Syria	Yes		1949
Taiwan	Yes		1947
Tajikistan	Yes		1924
Tanzania	Yes		1959
Thailand	Yes		1932
Togo	Yes		1945
Trinidad and Tobago	Yes	Suffrage was granted for the first time in 1925 to either sex, to men over the age of 21 and women over the age of 30, as in the United Kingdom (the "Mother Country", since Trinidad and Tobago was still a colony at the time). In 1945, full suffrage was granted to women.	1945
Tunisia	Yes		1957
Turkey	Yes	1930 (for local elections), 1934 (for national elections).	1934
Uganda	Yes		1962
Ukraine	Yes		1917
United Arab Emirates	Yes	Elections in the United Arab Emirates occur on a national level. However, their democratic usefulness is disputed.	2006
United Kingdom	Yes	From 1918 to 1928, women could vote at 30 with property qualifications or as graduates of UK universities, while men could vote at 21 with no qualification. From 1928 women had equal suffrage with men.	1928
United States	Yes	The United States finally began allowing women to vote in 1920, after the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.	1920
Uruguay	Yes	Fully equal civil rights and universal suffrage was granted by Constitution of 1917, though this suffrage was first exercised in 1927, in the plebiscite of Cerro Chato.	1927
Vanuatu	Yes		1975
Vatican City	No	No voting, and almost no women.
Venezuela	Yes	Though there are disputes as to the legitimacy of elections in Venezuela, they are ongoing at a national level.	1946
Vietnam	Yes		1946
Yemen	Yes		1967
Zambia	Yes		1962
Zimbabwe	Yes	1919 (whites only)	1978

For countries in which suffrage was granted in stages, starting with a subset of women or elections and later expanded to include all women in all elections, the date upon which full voting rights were extended for all women is used. Earlier dates will be given in the notes field.

There is one country on Earth that does not give anyone the right to vote, and that is Eritrea. This is a country that has no history of free elections, but it was only granted its independence in 1993.

The first country to give women the right to vote with the Pitcairn Islands, which gave them this right in 1838. In 1840, the Kingdom of Hawaii gave women the right to vote, but Hawaii would eventually become a United States territory. There were several other countries that gave women the right to vote in the nineteenth century, including the Isle of Man, the Cook Islands, and New Zealand.

Which Countries Gave Women the Right To Vote in the 20th Century?

The vast majority of countries gave women the right to vote in the 20th century. One of the first ones to do so was Australia, which gave women the right to vote in 1902; however, indigenous populations did not get the right to vote until 1962. Someone gave women the right to vote in 1906, and Canada followed suit in 1917. The end of World War 1 was a big year for women, as several major countries gave women the right to vote around this time. This includes Germany, Austria, Ukraine, Russia, the Netherlands, Belgium, and the United Kingdom.

What Pushed Countries To Give Women the Right To Vote?

Women gaining the right to vote happened in waves. There are several reasons why women gain the right to vote at different times. Major wars were certainly a driver of giving women the right to vote, as World War I pushed the majority of countries on Earth to at least consider giving women the right to vote. Social movements and cultural diffusion also gave women the right to vote, as did the calculations of various major political parties, all of whom viewed winning the support of women as a way to hold onto power. Even though different countries have different reasons for giving women the right to vote, there are a few common themes across the world.

What Were the Impacts of Giving Women the Right To Vote?

Giving women the right to vote has been viewed as a universal positive. The vast majority of countries experienced significant economic growth after giving women the right to vote. In addition, social support became significantly stronger after women were given the right to vote, as countries continue to pour resources into classes that were previously marginalized and underserved. Finally, giving women the right to vote has also encouraged everyone to participate more in government. When more people have a voice, the government does a better job of advocating for the advancement of everyone instead of just a select few. For all of these reasons, countries have slowly given women the right to vote, one at a time. There are still a few countries that do not have free elections at all.