Here’s How Internet Speeds in the United States Compare to the Rest of the World

The Internet has connected the world like never before. Today, you can seamlessly video chat with people on the other side of the world with little latency. Heck, depending on your job, you could work abroad: just use a few essential apps for remote work and you’re set. However, we are still limited by internet speeds. You would think that the United States would lead the world in this regard given its role in the development and popularization of the Internet, but you would be wrong.

Since the United States is the fourth-largest country on Earth in terms of total land area (third-largest in terms of population), Internet service providers have a lot of ground to cover and people to serve. As a result, people subscribe to different services and packages from multiple Internet service providers, and some are better than others. This system creates inconsistent internet speeds depending on location. According to Speedtest, the median internet speed in the United States is 186.64 Mbps. Meanwhile, the World Population Review puts this value at 302.68 Mbps (in 2025). Despite the difference in calculations, these sites agree that the United States is not the fastest.

Both websites place many countries ahead of the United States, but the precise order is not consistent. For example, Speedtest lists Bulgaria as just above the United States in internet speed at 203.13 Mbps, but the World Population Review places Macau just above the United States with its average speed of 312.37 Mbps (again in 2025). Meanwhile, Speedtest places Vietnam above the United States at 219.93 Mbps, while World Population Review places this country below the United States at 273.64 Mbps. At least both sites agree that the UAE has some of the fastest internet speeds on the planet – 365.24 and 675.51 Mbps, respectively.

In fairness, a range of 186.64 to 302.68 Mbps is sufficient for most tasks. Speedtest claims you only need 100Mbps to stream movies and shows in 4K – keep this in mind before purchasing 4K streaming sticks. If you regularly download games larger than 100 GB, you may want 200 Mbps or more. But what if you want to download large files?

While many sites and services measure the Internet using download speeds (all the numbers in the previous section were made up of upload speeds), upload speeds are the equally important flip side of that same coin. If you want to protect large or numerous files with apps and cloud storage services, you need fast download speeds. Generally speaking, download speeds still lag behind upload speeds, and the United States lags behind countless other countries in this area as well.

When Ooma (a telecommunications company that specializes in making phone calls over the Internet) tested the average Internet speeds of 20 countries, the company found that the United States came in dead last in download speeds, coming in just below the 50 Mbps average. Even countries with slower download speeds have left the United States in the dust for downloads. According to Ooma’s measurements, Iceland only just lost out to the United States in terms of average download speed (both were under 250 Mbps), but its upload speeds were around 200 Mbps, giving Iceland some of the fastest download speeds on the planet. The only country that was faster was Singapore, which ranked first in Ooma’s average download speed tests.

If you’re planning a vacation in a foreign country, don’t let Internet speed be a deciding factor. Go for the sights, food, festivities and souvenirs. But you’ll probably need the Internet to find your way around, reserve restaurants, and buy museum tickets. The good news is that you can enjoy faster internet speeds abroad, but your mileage may vary.

Unless you bring your laptop with you on your vacation, you can only connect to the internet with smart devices, and their internet speeds vary depending on your connection type. All of the internet speeds listed so far have been over broadband connections, so you can use them if you connect via Wi-Fi, but your options for doing so will be limited. You might get a taste of the foreign country’s Internet speeds if you use the Internet in your hotel, but otherwise you’ll be limited to whatever you can get with mobile networks.

To be fair, many countries have faster mobile internet speeds than the United States. The World Population Review placed median mobile speeds in the United States (in 2025) around 185 Mbps. Countries like South Korea and the United Arab Emirates left it in the dust with 240.28 Mbps and 672.68 Mbps respectively. However, countries with faster Internet speeds sometimes lag behind the United States in mobile: France beat the United States with its Internet speed of 346.04 Mbps, but its median mobile speeds were slightly slower at 147.49. Just keep in mind that your phone’s performance will vary depending on the travel eSim card you use, so always do your research before making any plans.