Average IQ in North America by Country: 23-Country Ranking
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Key Takeaways
- This table covers 23 countries classified as North America in the IQ Career Lab dataset.
- Canada has the highest estimate in the region at 101, followed by the United States at 100.
- The table includes Central American and Caribbean countries as well as Canada, the United States and Mexico.
- Differences in source quality, educational access and economic conditions complicate direct ranking.
- Each country links to a profile showing the exact source and contextual indicators.
North American IQ estimates by country
| Rank | Country | Average IQ | Source | Source year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Canada | 101 | Becker (2019) | 2019 |
| 2 | United States | 100 | Becker (2019) | 2019 |
| 3 | Mexico | 90 | Becker (2019) | 2019 |
| 4 | Costa Rica | 89 | Lynn & Vanhanen (2012) | 2012 |
| 5 | Cuba | 88 | Lynn & Vanhanen (2012) | 2012 |
| 6 | Panama | 87 | Lynn & Vanhanen (2012) | 2012 |
| 7 | Dominican Republic | 85 | Lynn & Vanhanen (2012) | 2012 |
| 8 | Honduras | 84 | Lynn & Vanhanen (2012) | 2012 |
| 9 | El Salvador | 83 | Lynn & Vanhanen (2012) | 2012 |
| 10 | Guatemala | 83 | Lynn & Vanhanen (2012) | 2012 |
| 11 | Nicaragua | 83 | Lynn & Vanhanen (2012) | 2012 |
| 12 | Trinidad and Tobago | 83 | Lynn & Vanhanen (2012) | 2012 |
| 13 | Antigua and Barbuda | 82 | World Population Review (2025) | 2025 |
| 14 | Barbados | 80 | Lynn & Vanhanen (2012) | 2012 |
| 15 | Jamaica | 80 | Lynn & Vanhanen (2012) | 2012 |
| 16 | Bahamas | 78 | World Population Review (2025) | 2025 |
| 17 | Grenada | 77 | World Population Review (2025) | 2025 |
| 18 | Haiti | 76 | Lynn & Vanhanen (2012) | 2012 |
| 19 | Belize | 75 | World Population Review (2025) | 2025 |
| 20 | Dominica | 75 | World Population Review (2025) | 2025 |
| 21 | Saint Kitts and Nevis | 75 | World Population Review (2025) | 2025 |
| 22 | Saint Lucia | 75 | World Population Review (2025) | 2025 |
| 23 | Saint Vincent and the Grenadines | 71 | World Population Review (2025) | 2025 |
These are country-level estimates from the dataset that powers IQ Career Lab's country profiles. Source methods and years vary by country. The lowest estimate in this regional table is Saint Vincent and the Grenadines at 71. National averages should not be used to infer the ability of an individual person.
The country links are the important part of the table. Open a profile to move from a regional rank to the evidence behind the estimate.
Where does your country rank?
Find any of 195 countries and open its full IQ profile, global ranking, education data, and comparisons.
Why Canada and the United States are only part of the story
Search interest often focuses on Canada, the United States and Mexico. But the regional dataset also includes countries from Central America and the Caribbean, where historical test coverage and socioeconomic conditions differ substantially.
That makes the continent-wide average less informative than the distribution of country-level sources. A high-quality nationally representative sample should carry more weight than an older estimate based on limited testing, regardless of where a country lands in the rank column.
Economic development and schooling
Country IQ estimates often correlate with literacy, educational attainment and income. Those relationships do not prove that one variable causes another in isolation. Development is a system: nutrition, healthcare, schooling quality, environmental exposures and labor-market incentives interact over time.
This is why our country profiles place IQ next to GDP per capita, HDI, literacy and years of schooling instead of presenting the cognitive estimate alone.
What about US state IQ rankings?
State-level lists circulate widely online, but they frequently rely on indirect proxies or opaque methods. We do not treat a state ranking as equivalent to a nationally normed IQ study. This article therefore stays at the country level, where the provenance of each value can be shown.
Country average versus personal result
A national value does not set a ceiling or floor for anyone who lives there. If you are trying to interpret your own result, use an individual-scale reference such as our IQ percentile chart instead.
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