Where is burning the flag illegal?
How flag desecration (also searched as flag burning) is treated in 67 countries, from sources last checked September 2026. Choose a country for its classification, the source, and how its neighbours compare.
- Criminal offense 55 countries (82%), including China, India, Indonesia and Brazil.
- Legal / protected speech 10 countries (15%), including United States, United Kingdom, South Africa and Romania.
- Only foreign flags protected 2 countries (3%): Denmark and Uruguay.
Criminal offense 55
- Algeria
- Argentina
- Armenia
- Aruba
- Austria
- Azerbaijan
- Brazil
- Bulgaria
- Chile
- China
- Croatia
- Curaçao
- Dominican Republic
- Egypt
- Estonia
- Ethiopia
- Faroe Islands
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- Greece
- Hong Kong
- Hungary
- India
- Indonesia
- Iran
- Israel
- Italy
- Japan
- Kazakhstan
- Lithuania
- Malaysia
- Mexico
- Morocco
- Nepal
- New Zealand
- Nigeria
- North Macedonia
- Philippines
- Portugal
- Russia
- Samoa
- Saudi Arabia
- Singapore
- Slovenia
- South Korea
- Spain
- Suriname
- Switzerland
- Taiwan
- Thailand
- Turkey
- Ukraine
- United Arab Emirates
- Uzbekistan
Legal / protected speech 10
Only foreign flags protected 2
About this data
Compiled from Wikipedia: Flag desecration; sources last checked 17 September 2026. The full dataset is available as JSON.
More on speech & belief
A visual reference compiled from Wikipedia’s law-by-country articles, not legal advice. Laws change and summaries simplify — check a primary source before relying on anything here.