China leads, US ranks 27th: Top 15 countries with highest math scores

China leads, US ranks 27th: Top 15 countries with highest math scores

Fifteen-year-old students from China have posted the highest score in this year’s edition of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the global test administered every three years by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The PISA 2025 results, released in September 2026, place China at 612 points in mathematics, more than 100 points above the score posted by the United States and nearly 150 points above the average across OECD member countries.More than 760,000 students across 91 countries and economies sat the exam, representing roughly 33 million 15-year-olds worldwide.

East Asia’s command of the top ranks

China’s mathematics score is officially attributed to Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, the provinces and municipalities that represent mainland China in the PISA sample rather than the country in full. Singapore follows in second place with 563 points, 49 behind China. Macao and Chinese Taipei round out the top four, scoring 549 and 546 respectively.Seven of the top 10 positions belong to education systems in East Asia, a pattern that has held across earlier PISA cycles as well. Japan ranks fifth with 525 points, while Korea and Hong Kong are tied for sixth at 522. Estonia is the first system outside Asia to appear on the list, ranking eighth with 508 points, the highest score posted by any European country.

The top 15, ranked

Source: OECD, PISA 2025 Results (Volume I).Outside the top 15, the ranking runs to 91 participating countries and economies. Australia sits at 17th with 478 points. Germany and Sweden are tied for 25th at 464, a point above the American score. France and Luxembourg share 33rd place at 458, and Vietnam is the lowest ranked country to clear 440 points, placing 40th at 443.

Where the United States and Canada stand

The United States ranks 27th globally with 463 points, exactly matching the OECD average. Twenty-four countries and economies scored higher than the United States in mathematics, and ten of those also outperformed it in reading.Canada performs considerably better, ranking 11th with 485 points, 22 above the OECD average and ahead of major European economies including Germany, France, Spain and Italy. Australia ranks 17th at 478, and New Zealand ties for 14th at 480.

A decline years in the making

Mathematics performance across OECD countries has slipped over the past decade. The average score fell from 485 points in 2015 to 463 in 2025, a decline the OECD equates to just over a year of lost learning. Reading recorded a steeper drop, from 489 to 461 points among OECD countries and from 428 to 412 among non-OECD participants, while science slipped more modestly, from 489 to 482.The OECD has described these as the lowest average levels of performance it has recorded across science, reading and mathematics. The share of 15-year-olds across OECD countries who count as low performers in all three subjects has also risen, reaching 20 percent this cycle, up from 16 percent in 2022.

Screen time enters the picture

The PISA 2025 report also weighed the relationship between digital device use and academic outcomes. Students who spend more than four hours a day on digital leisure activities outside school tend to score lower in mathematics and report a weaker sense of belonging at school. Moderate digital use, by contrast, was linked to better outcomes on both measures than either no use at all or very heavy use.The next PISA cycle is scheduled for 2028, when the OECD will test whether the gap separating East Asia’s top performers from the rest of the world has narrowed or widened further.