The Burrow
Jan 12, 2026
Household clutter may not seem like one of the most pressing issues facing the world today, but as consumer habits evolve and homes become smaller, it has become a silent problem affecting people worldwide.
And with mental health becoming a bigger focus in recent years, the impact of clutter on our concentration and relaxation has led to increased online interest in how to deal with it, with hundreds of thousands of searches for organisation tips being carried out each year.
As the war on clutter continues around the world, the home and contents insurance experts at Compare the Market Australia decided to analyse data on global household space, spending habits, and online search interest to identify which countries are the worst affected.
Here’s what we discovered about the world’s most (and least) cluttered regions around the world.
To find out which countries experience the most household clutter, we ranked them on a Global Clutter Index. Each country was assigned a score from 0 to 100, with lower scores indicating tidier homes and higher scores indicating homes with more clutter.
Here are the five highest-scoring countries on our list:
Topping our rankings with a clutter score of 85.08 out of 100, Italy is officially our country with the most cluttered homes in the world. The average Italian home is 81 m2, and its consumers typically spend around AU$41,127.05 annually.
This means that, for each square metre of property, Italy spends an average of $507.72 each year. Given the high cost of living and limited space, many Italians may be buying more than they can fit in their homes.
What earns Italy a place at the top of our list, however, is the country’s massive interest in online organisation advice. For every 100k people in Italy, 679.7 searches are made for decluttering advice each year, which is more than in any other country in the world!
This suggests that the country is trying to curb its clutter habits, but given the high volume, we can assume that more Italians are living with more clutter than the rest of the world.
Despite ranking second, the United Kingdom has the highest spend per square metre of any country in the world. It has the smallest homes of any European country we researched (76 m2 on average), yet Brits spend AU$44,316.76 annually, which is more than in those regions with larger properties. This means that the average UK household spends $583.13 per square metre each year.
Interestingly, though, there seems to be less British interest in decluttering tips online compared to other high-scoring countries, with just 268.1 annual searches per 100k residents. Overall, it scores 84.86 out of 100, placing it just behind Italy to finish as the second-most cluttered country worldwide.
Continuing Europe’s sweep of our top five is Finland, which scores 78.03 out of 100 on our clutter index. Given Scandinavian design’s reputation for tidy spaces, it may come as a surprise to see Finland place so high in our rankings, but it also boasts the second-highest online search interest for decluttering in the world.
For every 100k people in the country, 477.5 searches are made for organisational advice each year. And with an average house size of just 82 m2, Finnish homes are poorly equipped to deal with clutter.
Our research suggests the average consumer in the country spends AU$41,797.51 each year, which equates to a per-square-metre spend of $509.73. Combining these factors places Finland at #3 in our data.
Although it has the lowest annual spend in our top five at AU$38,872.58, Sweden’s small average home size still earns it a place at #4 on our list. With a typical house taking up 83 m2, Swedes can expect to buy around $468.39 of goods per square metre of property each year, indicating a lack of space to keep up with their spending habits.
The country also shows a considerable interest in organisational advice online, with 326.3 Google searches per 100k people annually. With a total score of 64.28 out of 100 on our clutter index, it ranks as the fourth-most cluttered country in the world.
Finally, Austria rounds out our top five with a score of 61.44 out of 100. Despite having the largest average home size of the top five (97 m2), it also has the highest average annual spend, with a typical consumer spending AU$47,960.14 each year. This means the average Austrian in our ranking spends $494.40 per square metre of their home annually.
Despite its high clutter score, Austrian search interest in clutter tips is much lower than the rest of our top five, with just 108.7 searches per 100k people each year. Its high total score, however, still earns it the #5 spot on our rankings, beating Luxembourg (54.47) and Ireland (49.16) for the position.
Whether through more frugal spending habits or larger homes, some countries have managed to keep clutter to a minimum. Based on our ranking, here are the countries with the tidiest households in the world:
Despite having the smallest average house size in our rankings, with a typical home measuring just 47 m2, India’s economic spending habits make it the least cluttered country in the world. The average Indian spends AU$9,623.51 annually, which is just $204.84 per square metre of housing.
Additionally, with just 9.1 Google searches for decluttering tips per 100k residents each year, it seems Indians don’t need as much organisational advice as people in other countries. With an impressively low score of 0.44 out of 100, India has the least cluttered households worldwide.
Another low-scoring country in our rankings is China, which finishes as the second-least cluttered country with a score of 4.82 out of 100. China has the fewest searches for decluttering tips in the world, according to our data, with 0.2 queries per 100k people each year.
However, since the Chinese internet is so different from Western countries, they’re likely getting advice from sites other than Google for their organisation.
Regardless, China manages to stay tidy despite an average house size of 60 m2. With a typical annual spend of AU$13,712.18, the average Chinese citizen spends just $228.53 on goods per square metre of their home each year.
As the country with the second-largest homes on average, at least according to our data, it’s unsurprising that New Zealand ranks so low on our list of cluttered countries. With houses averaging 202 m2 in size, New Zealand’s average annual spend of AU$41,195.4 means that its homeowners spend around $204.22 per square metre of housing each year.
Despite having plenty of space in their homes, however, New Zealanders still see relatively high search interest for decluttering guides. For every 100k people in the country, 270.4 searches are made for organisational advice annually. Still, this isn’t enough to affect New Zealand’s strong performance of just 9.94 out of 100, making it the third-least cluttered country.
Australia boasts some of the largest homes in the world on average, with a typical property taking up around 214 m2. This helps it secure a place in our five least-cluttered countries, as despite a high annual spend of AU$44,973.95, Australians have enough floor space to store their goods without causing a mess.
The typical Aussie spends just $209.91 on goods per square metre of their property each year, which is among the lowest worldwide. And although Australians still show interest in decluttering their homes (317.4 searches per 100k people annually), the country’s low clutter index score of 12.85 makes it the fourth-tidiest country in the world.
Capping off our bottom five is Greece, with a very respectable index score of 15.90 out of 100. Greek search interest in dealing with clutter is relatively low, with just 108.2 searches per 100k people annually, which may be because the country has such large houses compared to many other regions of Europe, with a typical home measuring 126 m2.
The average Greek consumer also only spends around AU$33,324.93 annually, which means that, for every square metre of housing, homeowners can expect to spend $264.44 on goods. This helps secure its place as the fifth-least-cluttered country worldwide, beating Canada (18.05) and France (32.48).
Having looked at which countries contain the most clutter, let’s now turn our attention to the Australian states with the highest rates of mess in the home. And for first place, we need only look to the south of the country.
With the smallest average homes in the country, Tasmania is the region of Australia with the most household clutter. Topping the list with a score of 78.68, a typical house measures just 182 m2, which is 30 m2 smaller than the national average, and its annual consumer spend of AU$31,606 means homeowners are buying $173.30 worth of products for each square metre of housing annually.
Tasmania was then followed by the Northern Territory (56.14) in second place and Western Australia (42.67) in third. Meanwhile, Victoria turned out to be the tidiest Australian state with a score of only 10.70.
Heading over to the US, we can also see that certain states are far messier than others. For example, Hawaii ranks some of the smallest average houses in America, with a typical home measuring just 108 m2 compared to the national average of 201 m2.
With the average consumer in the state spending US$60,711.00 (AU$93,901.38) each year, Hawaiians can expect to buy US$561.40 (AU$868.31) for each square metre annually. The state also has the highest search volume for decluttering advice in America, with 338.4 searches per 100k people annually, all of which contribute to its shocking 100/100 score on our US state clutter rankings!
In fact, Hawaii was miles ahead in terms of clutter compared to our second and third place states, with New York and Massachusetts scoring 72.42 and 62.55, respectively. On the other side of the fence, Idaho, with its large houses (215 m2) and low decluttering search interest (169.3 searches per 100k), ranks as the tidiest state with a very low rank of 1.02.
Executive General Manager of General Insurance, Adrian Taylor, has this to say on the issue:
“Regardless of how cluttered your home is, protecting our belongings is a priority for all of us,” Mr Taylor said.
“One important aspect of protecting your home and your belongings is home and contents insurance.
“When looking to take out coverage, it’s important to always read the Product Disclosure Statement (PDS) and compare your options to ensure you find a policy that fits you, your home and your lifestyle.”
This campaign investigates which parts of the world are most likely to struggle with clutter at home, analysing how household size, consumer spending, and interest in decluttering trends vary across countries, US states, and Australian states.
By combining data on home size, spending on consumer goods, and search behaviour for storage or decluttering solutions, the index reveals where people are living with the most items relative to the space they have.
The factors used were:
Average home size (m² per household):
Consumer goods spending per capita:
Google search interest in storage and decluttering (per capita):
Methodology:
Weighting:
Each metric was normalised to a 0–1 scale before being combined into a total index score out of 100. Higher scores indicate a greater likelihood of household clutter.
Indexing rules:
Disclaimer:
This is an estimate based on available data and may not reflect every real-world detail.
Exchange rate used for 1 USD to AUD is approximately 1.5484 AUD (as of November 21, 2025).
All data is correct as of 18.11.2025.