The number of executions in the United States nearly doubled in 2025, rising from 25 the previous year to 47 across 11 states, according to a report released Sunday by Amnesty International. The increase reflects a broader global trend, with executions worldwide reaching a 44-year high.
The human rights organization documented 2,707 state-sanctioned killings across 17 countries in 2025, marking a 78% increase from the 1,518 executions recorded in 2024. The charges leading to these executions ranged from drug offenses to acts of political dissidence.
Florida dominated the national count with 19 executions, an unprecedented surge for a state that typically carries out between one and two executions annually, with occasional spikes reaching six. Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has championed capital punishment as a "strong deterrent" for crime and "an appropriate punishment for the worst offenders." In 2023, DeSantis lowered the state's legal threshold for imposing the death penalty, eliminating the requirement for unanimous jury recommendation.
Texas recorded the second-most executions in the country, followed by Alabama and North Carolina. The United States remains the only country in the Americas to have carried out criminal executions in 2025, with the death penalty applying exclusively to murder or treason cases.
Justin Mazzola, deputy director for research at Amnesty International, attributed the "huge spike" in American executions to developments in Florida specifically. "Last year, they executed 19 individuals, so almost one every couple of weeks," Mazzola said.
Internationally, Iran accounted for the majority of executions, putting 2,159 people to death—more than double its 2024 total. Amnesty International attributed the surge partly to Iran's increased use of the death penalty "as a tool of state repression and to crush dissent" since 2022, when a sweeping women's rights protest movement erupted. In September, the organization noted that Iran had already reached its highest number of executions in 15 years.
Saudi Arabia executed at least 356 people in 2025. Many countries, including Iran and Saudi Arabia, used the death penalty to enforce strict drug laws, according to the report. The execution count does not include suspected thousands of executions carried out in China, which Amnesty International describes as the leading country for executions anywhere in the world.
Amnesty International, which supports abolition of capital punishment, describes the death penalty as the "ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment." The organization's findings underscore the persistent use of state-sanctioned execution despite growing international scrutiny of the practice.
