Roughly 37 to 39 percent of males worldwide are circumcised, meaning more than one in three. The practice spans religious traditions, cultural norms, medical needs, and public health programs, but it concentrates heavily in specific populations. Who gets circumcised depends largely on where you’re born, what religion your family practices, and in some cases, a specific medical condition.
Religious Groups With the Highest Rates
Judaism and Islam together account for the vast majority of circumcisions performed globally. In Judaism, circumcision (the Brit Milah) is one of the most universally observed commandments, serving as an outward physical sign of the covenant between God and the Jewish people. It’s typically performed on the eighth day after birth and is nearly universal among observant Jewish families.
In Islam, circumcision is considered one of the rules of cleanliness and is tied to the concept of “Fitrah,” the natural disposition of the human body. The timing varies by culture. Some Muslim communities circumcise newborns, while others wait until boys are older, sometimes around age seven or during adolescence. With roughly 1.8 billion Muslims worldwide, Islamic practice is the single largest driver of global circumcision numbers.
Christianity has no formal requirement for circumcision, and most Christian-majority countries in Europe and Latin America have very low rates. The notable exception is the United States, where circumcision became widespread in the early-to-mid 20th century for non-religious reasons and has remained common since.
Countries With the Highest and Lowest Rates
The countries with the highest circumcision rates are predominantly Muslim-majority nations. Morocco, Afghanistan, and Tunisia all exceed 99.8 percent. The West Bank, Comoros, Mauritania, Gabon, and Tajikistan are all above 99 percent. In these places, circumcision is essentially universal for boys.
At the other end, rates drop below 1 percent in much of Latin America, Scandinavia, and parts of the Pacific. Iceland, Greenland, and Laos all sit at roughly 0.1 percent. Bolivia, Paraguay, Ecuador, and Guatemala hover around 0.11 percent. In many European countries, non-religious circumcision is almost unheard of. Rates in the United Kingdom dropped sharply starting in the 1950s, New Zealand followed in the 1960s, and Canada saw declines beginning in the 1990s.
The United States Is an Outlier
The U.S. stands apart from other Western nations. About 65 percent of male newborns born in American hospitals were circumcised in 1999, and rates have hovered between 60 and 68 percent since the late 1980s. That’s far higher than the UK, Australia, or Canada, where rates have fallen significantly over the past several decades.
Within the U.S., geography plays a big role. The Midwest has historically had the highest rates, reaching 81 percent in 1999. The West had the lowest at around 37 percent. Racial differences were minimal at the national level, with white and Black newborn circumcision rates both near 65 percent in 1999.
Insurance coverage also influences who gets circumcised. When Medicaid programs in certain states stopped covering the procedure, circumcision rates in those states dropped. At least 16 states have removed Medicaid coverage for newborn circumcision, treating it as elective. Families without insurance or with limited coverage are less likely to have the procedure done, creating a socioeconomic split that doesn’t exist in countries where the practice is driven by religion or culture rather than medical convention.
Medical Reasons for Circumcision
Some males are circumcised later in life for specific medical conditions. The most common is phimosis, where the foreskin is too tight to retract over the head of the penis. This can cause pain, difficulty urinating, or recurring infections. Paraphimosis, where the foreskin gets stuck in a retracted position and can’t slide back, is another condition that sometimes requires circumcision. Recurring inflammation of the foreskin or the head of the penis (balanitis) that doesn’t respond to other treatments can also lead to the procedure.
Penile cancer, while rare, is another medical indication. The procedure is a last resort in most of these cases, used when less invasive treatments have failed.
HIV Prevention Programs in Africa
Starting in 2007, circumcision took on a new public health role after the World Health Organization endorsed it as a prevention tool for HIV. Research showed that circumcision reduces the risk of female-to-male HIV transmission by approximately 60 percent. Following that endorsement, large-scale voluntary medical male circumcision programs launched across eastern and southern Africa.
Between 2017 and 2021, CDC-supported programs operated in 13 countries: Botswana, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. These programs target adolescent and adult males who were not circumcised as children, making them one of the few settings where large numbers of older males are routinely circumcised.
Circumcision also reduces the acquisition of HPV, the virus responsible for most cervical and penile cancers. A large randomized trial in Kenya found that circumcised men had about 40 percent lower rates of new HPV infection and were roughly 50 percent more likely to clear an existing HPV infection compared to uncircumcised men.
Age Matters for Complication Risk
Most circumcisions worldwide are performed on newborns or young infants, and the data strongly favors early timing from a safety standpoint. Among infants circumcised in the U.S., the complication rate is less than half a percent. For boys circumcised between ages one and nine, that rate jumps to about 9 percent, roughly 20 times higher. For those circumcised at age ten or older, the complication rate is about 5 percent, still 10 times the infant rate.
Complications are typically minor: bleeding, infection, or issues with wound healing. Serious complications are rare at any age, but the gap between infant and older procedures is large enough that timing is a meaningful factor for families and clinicians weighing the decision.
Cultural Traditions Beyond Religion
In parts of sub-Saharan Africa, circumcision is a coming-of-age ritual with no connection to Islam or Judaism. Among the Xhosa people in South Africa, for instance, adolescent males undergo circumcision as part of initiation into manhood. Similar traditions exist in communities across West Africa, East Africa, and parts of the Pacific Islands, including the Philippines and some Aboriginal Australian groups. In these contexts, circumcision marks a social transition rather than a religious obligation, and it’s typically performed on teenagers rather than infants.
In South Korea, circumcision became widespread during and after the Korean War, likely influenced by the American military presence. Rates climbed dramatically in the second half of the 20th century, making South Korea one of the few non-Muslim, non-Jewish countries with high circumcision prevalence.