In 2025, at least 2,707 people were executed in 17 countries. This was the highest number since 1981, according to Amnesty International’s annual report, Death Sentences and Executions 2025, released in May 2026.
Asia-Pacific recorded the highest number of executions. However, the actual figure is believed to be much higher because China, North Korea, and Viet Nam keep their execution data secret as state information.
In Southeast Asia, eight of the 11 countries still retain the death penalty in their national laws. The number of countries in the region reached 11 after Timor-Leste officially became ASEAN’s 11th member on October 26, 2025.
However, retaining the death penalty does not always mean carrying out executions. Here is how they differ, from the countries with the most recent executions to those that have gone decades without carrying one out.
1. Viet Nam
Viet Nam issued 138 new death sentences in 2025, including 100 for drug-related offenses, according to Amnesty International. However, the government does not disclose execution data, so the number and dates of executions are not officially known.
That same year, Viet Nam moved in the opposite direction by abolishing the death penalty for eight types of offenses, including drug trafficking. The government also expanded avenues for commuting death sentences.
2. Singapore
Singapore carried out 17 executions in 2025, nearly twice the nine executions recorded in 2024. It was the country’s highest annual number since 2003, with most cases involving drug trafficking.
Along with China, Iran, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, Singapore was one of only five countries known to have executed people for drug-related offenses in 2025.
3. Myanmar
On July 25, 2022, Myanmar’s military junta executed four people. It was the country’s first execution in more than 30 years.
One of them was Phyo Zeya Thaw, a former lawmaker allied with Aung San Suu Kyi who was also known as a hip-hop musician. Data from the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners shows that at least 156 people had been sentenced to death by the junta from the 2021 coup through mid-2023, including four teenagers.
A day after the executions, then-U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken described them as a “brazen attempt to extinguish democracy.”
4. Thailand
Thailand last carried out an execution on June 18, 2018, against a person convicted of robbery and murder. It was the country’s first execution since 2009.
Although executions have stopped, death sentences continue to increase. Thailand issued 119 new death sentences in 2025. By the end of the year, 429 people remained on death row, including 53 women and seven foreign nationals. Of these cases, 313 were related to drugs.
Thailand is now approaching “abolitionist in practice” status under Amnesty International, which is granted after a full decade without an execution.
5. Malaysia
Malaysia last executed two people by hanging in May 2017. By mid-2026, the country had gone about nine years without an execution.
In 2023, Malaysia abolished the mandatory death penalty. The law, which took effect on July 4, gave judges the option of imposing alternative sentences and led to the review of more than 1,000 previous death sentences.
The government also scheduled a review of the complete abolition of the death penalty starting in January 2026.
6. Indonesia
Indonesia last carried out an execution in 2016. In 2026, the country entered its 10th year of a de facto execution moratorium.
However, death sentences continue to be handed down. Amnesty recorded 68 new death sentences in 2025, including 56 drug-related cases. Indonesia’s Ministry of Immigration and Corrections also reported around 500 people on death row as of October 2025.
The new Criminal Code, which took effect in January 2026, places the death penalty as a secondary option for extraordinary crimes. Those sentenced to death will first undergo a 10-year probation period. If they demonstrate good conduct and actions during that period, their sentence can be commuted to life imprisonment through a Presidential Decree following consideration by the Supreme Court.
7. Laos
Laos has not carried out an execution since 1989. As of 2026, that means 37 years without an execution.
Amnesty classifies the country as “abolitionist in practice.” Although the death penalty remains part of its laws, executions have stopped for far longer than the 10-year threshold.
However, around 315 people remain on death row, according to Radio Free Asia. Most are related to drug cases, with annual presidential pardons continuing to postpone their executions.
8. Brunei
Brunei has the longest execution gap in Southeast Asia. The country last carried out an execution in 1957.
When the Syariah Penal Code came into effect in 2019, its death penalty provisions for several offenses, including same-sex relations and adultery, drew international condemnation. The government later affirmed that its decades-old execution moratorium also applied to the new provisions.
Three Countries That Have Abolished It
Three Southeast Asian countries have fully abolished the death penalty. Cambodia abolished it in 1989 and enshrined the abolition in its 1993 Constitution. The Philippines abolished it in 1987, reinstated it in 1993, and abolished it again in 2006.
Timor-Leste abolished the death penalty on November 27, 1999, through UNTAET Regulation No. 1999/1, while it was still under the United Nations transitional administration and three years before gaining independence in 2002.
The region shows that retaining the death penalty and carrying out executions are two different things. From countries that still carry out executions to those under decades-long moratoriums, Southeast Asia has a wide spectrum of how the death penalty is applied.
