List of countries by rail usage

Globally, rail freight is transported to the extent of almost 10,000 billion tonne-kilometres (9.842 billion long ton-miles or 11.023 billion short ton-miles) per year, of which about one-third occurs in India and a quarter each in the United States and China.

Of the 3,000 bn passenger-kilometres travelled across the world each year, 1,346 bn are travelled in China and 1,150 bn in India. Thus China and India together contribute almost half of world's passenger travel.

The average Swiss person travels 2,430 km by train each year (the highest in the world), almost 500 more than the average Japanese person (the second highest).

In 2014, there were about 1 million kilometres (621,400 miles) of railway in the world, a decrease of 3% compared to 2013.

• 350,000 km (218,000 mi) were in Europe and mainly used for passenger service.
• 370,000 km (230,000 mi) were in North America and mainly used for freight.
• 230,000 km (140,000 mi) were in Asia and used for both freight and passenger service.^[1]

In America and Europe, many low-fare airlines and motorways compete with rail for passenger traffic. Asia has experienced a large growth in high-speed rail: its 257bn passenger-kilometres represent 72% of total world high-speed rail passenger traffic.^[1]

These figures do not include metro railway systems; see Lists of rapid transit systems for metro rail statistics.

Passenger-kilometres of rail transport per year

This section needs additional citations for verification. (April 2015)

Countries with more than five billion passenger-kilometres (pkm) travelled per year. Unless otherwise specified, data come from the Railway Statistics 2015 Report by the International Union of Railways (UIC).

More information Rank, Country/Region ...

Rank	Country/Region	Passenger-kilometres (billions)	Data year
1	China	1,550[2]	2019
2	India	1,157[3]	2019
3	Japan	446.7[4]	2019
4	Russia	133.6[4]	2019
5	France	112.6[4]	2019
6	Germany	100[4]	2019
7	South Korea	93.9[4]	2019
8	United Kingdom	80.5[4]	2018
9	Italy	56.6[4]	2019
10	United States	32.5[4]	2019
11	Ukraine	28.4	2019
12	Spain	27.3[4]	2019
13	Netherlands	22.6[4]	2018
14	Poland	22.1[4]	2019
15	Switzerland	21.7[5]	2019
16	Pakistan	20.3	2015
17	Taiwan	19.8	2015
18	Indonesia	18.5	2015
19	Kazakhstan	18.5[4]	2018
20	Australia	17.6[4]	2018
21	Iran	16.3	2014
22	Sweden	14.6[4]	2019
23	Turkey	14.3[4]	2019
24	Bangladesh	14.3[6]	2019
25	Austria	13.4[4]	2019
26	Czech Republic	10.9[4]	2019
27	Belgium	10.2[4]	2017
28	Argentina	8.4[4]	2017
29	Hungary	7.8[4]	2019
30	Thailand	7.5	2011
31	Denmark	6.6[4]	2018
32	Belarus	6.3[4]	2019
33	Romania	5.9[4]	2019
34	Portugal	5[4]	2019
35	Finland	4.9[4]	2019
	World	2,954	2014
	European Union	416	2019

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Passengers carried in rail transport per year

Countries with more than 20 million passengers per year. Unless otherwise specified, data come from the Railway Statistics 2019 Report by the International Union of Railways.

As mentioned in the notes, many of these figures are very incomplete, as they exclude metro/rapid transport rail services.

More information Rank, Country ...

Rank	Country	Million passengers	Data year	Notes
1	Japan	25,201	2019 [7]	Includes all public and private rail services. For only the JR group rail companies, the figure in 2019 was 9,503 million passengers.[7]
2	India	8,439	2019	Includes Indian Railways suburban and intercity traffic only, excludes the passengers carried by rapid transit systems. The Delhi Metro alone transported 1.73 billion passengers in 2018.
3	China	3,660	2019[8]	Excludes rapid transit networks, which handled 23.71 billion passengers in 2019.[9]
4	Germany	2,938	2019[10]
5	Brazil	2,480	2023[11]	Includes all public and private rail services. Down 24% from the 3.26 billion passengers carried in 2019
6	France	1,880	2019[12]
7	United Kingdom	1,836.8	2019[10]	The London Underground ("The Tube") had an additional 1.34 billion passengers in 2015-16[13]
8	Russia	1,157.2	2018	Moscow Metro alone had 2.45 billion passengers in 2014[14]
9	Australia	1,064.2	2018–19	Combined Urban and Non-Urban Rail Passenger Traffic[15]
10	Italy	883.3	2019[10]
11	Spain	636	2019[16]	Madrid Metro alone had 657.2 million passengers in 2018.[17]
12	United States	535	2019	Amtrak had 32.5 million passengers in Fiscal Year 2019 (ending September 30).[18] Among regional systems that report to the American Public Transportation Association, there were 502.5 million commuter rail riders in calendar year 2019.[19]
13	Switzerland	519.3	2019[10]
14	Netherlands	474.5	2019
15	Ukraine	440.9	2016[20]
16	Indonesia	429.2	2019[21]
17	Argentina	426.2	2018	423,202,522 Buenos Aires commuter[22] 2,036,792 regional[23] 1,009,357 long distance
18	Poland	324.1	2019[10]	Passengers carried by all rail passenger transport companies in Poland.[24]
19	Taiwan	291.84	2018
20	Austria	278	2019[10]	Vienna U-Bahn alone had 463.1 million passengers in 2018.[25]
21	Egypt	270	2019[26]
22	South Africa	269	2017–18[27]
23	Sweden	264.6	2019[10]	Stockholm metro alone had 353 million passengers in 2017.[28]
24	Belgium	246.94	2018
25	Denmark	206.6	2019[10]
26	Czech Republic	193.5	2019[10]	Prague Metro alone had 435.6 million passengers in 2017.[29]
27	Portugal	175.5	2019[10]	Lisbon Metro alone had 169 million passengers in 2018.[30]
28	Turkey	164.7	2019[10]	Istanbul Metro alone had 469.7 million passengers in 2018.[31]
29	Sri Lanka	138.66	2017[32]
30	South Korea	127.84	2018
31	Hungary	119	2018	Budapest Metro alone had 409.3 million passengers in 2017.[33]
32	Canada	106.9	2019[34]	Via Rail, Canada's main intercity rail provider, transported 5 million passengers in 2019. Commuter railway systems in and around Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver transported an additional 101.9 million passengers in 2019.
33	Finland	92.8	2019[35]	14.9 million / year long-distance 77.9 million / year in Helsinki commuter traffic
34	Bangladesh	92.71	2019[6]	Includes only Bangladesh Railway figures.
35	Norway	80.402	2019[36]	Oslo Metro alone had 122 million passengers in 2018.[37]
36	Slovakia	80	2019[10]
37	Belarus	79.86	2018	Minsk Metro alone had 293.7 million passengers in 2019.[38]
38	Romania	67.9	2019[10]	Bucharest Metro alone had 178.9 million passengers in 2017.[39]
39	Israel	64.6	2017	The Jerusalem Light Rail carried an additional 42.5 million passengers in 2017.[40]
40	Mexico	57	2018	Tren Suburbano statistics only[41]
41	Pakistan	52.39	2018
42	Ireland	50.06	2019[10]
43	Thailand	50	2017[42]	Bangkok MRT alone had 113.7 million passengers in 2018.[43]
44	Myanmar	48	2017[44]
45	Chile	47	2018[45]	Santiago Metro alone had 721 million passengers in 2018.[46]
46	Malaysia	44.51	2018
47	Tunisia	41	2017
48	Algeria	39	2018	Algiers Metro alone had 40 million passengers in 2018.[47]
49	Morocco	35	2018
50	New Zealand	35	2019[48]
51	Iran	28.09	2018	Tehran Metro alone had 721 million passengers in 2016.[49]
52	Luxembourg	25	2019[10]
53	Kazakhstan	22.9	2018
54	Philippines	21.84	2018
55	Uzbekistan	21.59	2018	Tashkent Metro alone had 71.2 million passengers in 2019.[38]
56	Bulgaria	21.3	2019[10]	Sofia Metro alone had 93.1 million passengers in 2018.[50]

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Passenger modal share for rail

The modal share of railway transport (excluding tram & metro) as compared to other modes of transport, based on Passenger-km.

More information Rank, Country ...

Rank	Country	Modal share (%)	year
1	Japan	32.9	2016[51][52]
2	China	32	2021[53]
3	Russia	24.4	2018[54]
4	Switzerland	20.0	2019[55]
5	India	20.0	2018[56]
6	Austria	12.9	2019[55]
7	Netherlands	11.3	2019[55]
8	Sweden	10.5	2019[55]
9	France	10.4	2019[55]
10	Slovakia	10.2	2019[55]
11	Czech Republic	9.9	2019[55]
12	Germany	9.4	2019[55]
13	United Kingdom	8.5	2019[55]
14	Belgium	8.4	2019[55]
15	Hungary	8.3	2019[55]
16	Denmark	8.2	2019[55]
17	Poland	7.3	2019[55]
18	Spain	7.1	2019[55]
19	Indonesia	6.3	2005[57]
20	Italy	6.3	2019[55]
21	Finland	6.2	2019[55]
22	Norway	4.9	2019[55]
23	Luxembourg	4.8	2019[55]
24	Portugal	4.6	2019[55]
25	Romania	4.2	2019[55]
26	Latvia	3.4	2019[55]
27	Ireland	3.3	2019[55]
28	Turkey	3.3	2019[55]
29	Croatia	2.4	2019[55]
30	Bulgaria	2.2	2019[55]
31	Estonia	2.2	2019[55]
32	Slovenia	1.8	2019[55]
33	Montenegro	1.2	2019[55]
34	Greece	1.0	2019[55]
35	Lithuania	1.0	2019[55]
36	Serbia	0.7	2019[55]
37	North Macedonia	0.6	2019[55]
38	United States	0.3	2004[58]

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Passenger rail by passenger-kilometres per capita

This section needs additional citations for verification. (April 2015)

Countries with more than five billion passenger-kilometres travelled per year.

More information Country, Kilometers/year ...

Country	Kilometers/year	Year
Switzerland	1,637	2021[59]
France	1,040	2021[59]
Austria	950	2021[59]
Sweden	768	2021[59]
Denmark	722	2021[59]
Germany	697	2021[59]
Belgium	653	2021[59]
Czech Republic	637	2021[59]
Netherlands	570	2021[59]
Hungary	552	2021[59]
United Kingdom	460	2021[59]
Italy	457	2021[59]
Poland	417	2021[59]
Spain	348	2021[59]
Romania	220	2021[59]
Croatia	139	2021[59]
Japan	3,400	2016[51]
Russia	1,220
India	1,178	2017[60]
Ukraine	1,150
Belarus	1,030
China	1,019	2019
Kazakhstan	880
South Korea	650
Egypt	550
Taiwan	410
Iran	180
Argentina	170
Pakistan	160
Thailand	150
Indonesia	110
Bangladesh	86.6	2019
Turkey	80
United States	80

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• List of countries by rail transport network size
• Rail transport by country