Member states of BRICS
Membership and participation statuses of BRICS
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The original members of BRICS were Brazil, Russia, India, and China, which began meeting as BRIC in 2006 and held their first leaders' summit in 2009. South Africa joined in 2010, giving the grouping its current acronym. BRICS expanded in 2024 with the admission of Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates, and Indonesia formally joined in January 2025. Official BRICS sources also list Saudi Arabia among the member states, although its status has been described inconsistently (see Status of Saudi Arabia).[1] In addition to its members, BRICS has a formal category of partner countries and uses several formats for engagement with other states and international organizations.
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Forms of affiliation and participation
BRICS is an informal intergovernmental coordination forum rather than a treaty-based international organization. It has no constitutive treaty, permanent secretariat or budget of its own.[2] Official BRICS material distinguishes two standing categories of participation: member states and partner countries. Other forms of participation, including BRICS Outreach, BRICS Plus and invitations to external-engagement countries or international organizations, concern participation in particular meetings and do not constitute additional categories of membership.[1]
| Status or format | Nature | Participation |
|---|---|---|
| Member state | Standing BRICS participation category. | Members participate throughout the BRICS framework, and decisions among them are taken by consensus.[1][2] |
| Partner country | Standing participation category created at the 16th BRICS summit in Kazan in 2024. | Partners are individually invited to the BRICS leaders' summit and meetings of foreign ministers. They may be invited to other meetings subject to consultation and consensus among the members, and may endorse summit declarations, foreign-ministers' declarations and other final documents.[3] |
| BRICS Outreach | External-engagement meeting format, introduced by South Africa in 2013. | The rotating presidency may invite countries from its geographic region to participate in selected BRICS activities. Such participation does not itself confer member or partner status.[4] |
| BRICS Plus | External-engagement meeting format, introduced by China in 2017. | The rotating presidency may invite countries from outside its geographic region to participate. Participation in BRICS Plus is not a separate membership category.[4] |
| Other invited participants | Ad hoc participation in particular meetings. | States that are neither members nor partners, as well as international organizations, may be invited to specific meetings or summit sessions. An invitation to a meeting does not by itself create an affiliation status.[1] |
| Applicant or interested country | No standing participation status. | A declaration of interest or application does not itself confer member or partner status. The official accession process distinguishes interested countries from potential members or partners, with final admission requiring consensus among the BRICS members.[2] |
Accession process
For full membership, official BRICS guidance describes three stages: an expression of interest, designation as a potential BRICS member and, following consensus among the members, admission as a member. A parallel process applies to partner-country status. Criteria considered for partners include geographic balance, good diplomatic relations with all BRICS members, United Nations membership and support for multilateralism and reform of global governance.[2]
Status of Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia's status within BRICS has remained unresolved, with BRICS institutions and successive chair countries generally treating it as a member while Saudi official sources have repeatedly stopped short of unequivocally confirming its accession.
At the 15th BRICS summit in Johannesburg in August 2023, Saudi Arabia was one of six countries invited to become full members of BRICS from 1 January 2024.[5] Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates subsequently began participating as members, while Argentina declined its invitation. Saudi Arabia, however, did not publicly confirm that it had accepted the invitation. In January 2024, Saudi Minister of Commerce Majid bin Abdullah Al Qasabi said that the kingdom had "not yet officially joined BRICS".[6] The following month, a Saudi official source told press agencies that Saudi Arabia had "not yet responded to the invitation to join BRICS" and that the invitation remained under consideration.[7]
Despite this, BRICS institutions began listing Saudi Arabia as a member. During Brazil's 2025 chairship, the official BRICS website described the group as comprising eleven members, explicitly including Saudi Arabia, and stated that the eleven member countries participated in BRICS meetings and consensus-based decision-making.[8] Reuters nevertheless reported in May 2025 that Saudi Arabia had "held off formally joining" the group despite being listed as a member by BRICS itself.[9]
Saudi official terminology has also varied between meetings. At the 17th BRICS summit in July 2025, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) said that Minister of Foreign Affairs Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud headed the Saudi delegation "as an invited country to join the BRICS group".[10] The inconsistency became particularly apparent during BRICS foreign ministers' meetings in New Delhi in May 2026. On 14 May, SPA reported that Saudi Arabia participated "in its capacity as a BRICS member country";[11] a report published by the same agency the following day described Saudi Arabia as participating "as an invited country".[12]
The ambiguity was not resolved at the 18th BRICS summit in New Delhi in September 2026. As the 2026 BRICS chair, the Government of India explicitly classified Saudi Arabia as a full member. A government backgrounder published two days before the summit stated that "BRICS comprises 11 countries", including Saudi Arabia, and further stated that Saudi Arabia had become a full member in January 2024.[13] Saudi Arabia nevertheless again used invited-country terminology. Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan travelled to New Delhi on behalf of Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman to head the Saudi delegation,[14] while Saudi reporting described him as participating "as a representative of an invited country".[15]
The summit programme provided a further indication of the distinction between Saudi Arabia's institutional classification and its participation. The programme released by India's Ministry of External Affairs reserved the opening day's principal events for leaders of BRICS member countries, including a members-only closed session beginning at 14:35 and subsequent events for member-country leaders.[16] An official Indian diplomatic arrival list, however, gave Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud an estimated arrival time of 17:30 on 12 September, after the closed session and the other scheduled member-leader events.[17] On the published timings, the Saudi delegation was therefore not scheduled to be present for the opening members-only programme. This does not by itself determine Saudi Arabia's formal BRICS status, particularly as the arrival list stated that its details were subject to change, but it added to the discrepancy between BRICS's classification of Saudi Arabia as a member and the more qualified manner in which the kingdom participated in the summit.
Independent reporting continued to distinguish Saudi Arabia from the ten states whose accession was regarded as completed. On 12 September 2026, Reuters described Saudi Arabia as having been invited to join BRICS but as having "yet to join".[18]
As a result, Saudi Arabia has since 2024 occupied an unusual position within BRICS: official BRICS sources and successive chair countries have listed and treated it institutionally as a member, while Saudi authorities have not consistently confirmed accession and have repeatedly described the kingdom's participation as that of an invited country. The 2026 New Delhi summit did not resolve this discrepancy; instead, the host government continued to count Saudi Arabia among the eleven members while Saudi reporting and the published participation schedule remained consistent with a more qualified form of participation.[8][9][13][17]
Member states
Official BRICS sources and the Government of India, which holds the 2026 BRICS presidency, list eleven member states.[1][19]
Disputed member
| Country | Capital | Area (km2) | Population (2025) | Density (/km2) | GDP per cap. (PPP)[20] | HDI[21] | Currency | Official languages | Leaders | Accession |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Saudi Arabia,Kingdom of | Riyadh | 2,149,690 | 34,566,328[27] | 16.1 | 78,815 | 0.900 | Saudi riyal (ر.س) (SAR) | Arabic | Head of State: Salman of Saudi Arabia Head of Government: Mohammed bin Salman | Invited to join from 1 January 2024[b][1] |
Partner countries
The partner-country category was created at the 16th BRICS summit in Kazan in 2024. It is a formal participation category distinct from full membership and should not be confused with observer status. Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda and Uzbekistan became the first BRICS partner countries in January 2025.[3] Vietnam was formally admitted on 13 June 2025, becoming the tenth partner country.[28]
Other partner-country invitations and expressions of interest
BRICS has considered a larger group of states for partner-country status than the ten countries that have formally become partners. Official BRICS material states that more than 30 countries expressed interest in participation as members or partners during the 2024 expansion process.[2] An invitation or expression of interest should therefore not be treated as equivalent to partner status.
| Country | Reported position | Status |
|---|---|---|
 Türkiye,Republic of | Turkish Trade Minister Ömer Bolat said in November 2024 that BRICS had offered Türkiye partner-country status.[29] | Türkiye is not included in the current official list of BRICS partner countries.[1] |
 Algeria,People's Democratic Republic of | Algeria was among countries that had expressed interest in BRICS participation. In September 2024, Algerian state media reported that the authorities considered the country's full-membership accession file closed.[30] | Algeria is not a BRICS member or partner.[1] |
Applications and prospective expansion
An application or expression of interest does not constitute a BRICS affiliation status. Under the procedures described by BRICS, applications are considered through consultations before leaders decide by consensus whether to invite a country to become a member or partner.[2]
Current publicly confirmed applications for full membership
| Country | Application | Current position |
|---|---|---|
 Azerbaijan,Republic of | August 2024[31] | Azerbaijan formally applied for BRICS membership. It is not currently listed as a member or partner.[1] |
 Pakistan,Islamic Republic of | 2023 | Pakistan has publicly maintained its interest in full membership. In July 2025, its Foreign Ministry stated that Pakistan remained interested in becoming a BRICS member.[32] It is not currently a member or partner.[1] |
 Palestine,State of | 2025 | The Palestinian ambassador to Russia stated in September 2025 that Palestine had submitted an application for full membership and had not yet received a response.[33] Palestine is not currently a member or partner.[1] |
Former full-membership applications
| Country | Application | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
 Argentina,Republic of | 2022 | Argentina was invited in 2023 to become a member from 1 January 2024, but the government of Javier Milei declined the invitation in December 2023.[34] |
| Algeria, People's Democratic Republic of | 2023 | Algerian authorities later considered the accession file closed, according to Algerian state media in September 2024.[30] |
Unsuccessful or unresolved partner-country bids
During the 2024 process for selecting the first partner countries, a number of additional states expressed interest but did not obtain partner status. Reporting at the 16th BRICS summit stated that Brazil opposed the inclusion of Venezuela among the proposed partners.[35] Nicaragua was also discussed as a possible partner but was not selected.[36] Neither country is currently a BRICS partner.[1]
Membership in other international groupings
The following table compares BRICS member states' full membership in selected international groupings. It does not generally include observer, dialogue-partner or other non-membership statuses; cooperation through OPEC+ is indicated separately.
| Country | P5 | G20 | SCO | RCEP | APEC | G4 | OPEC | Nuclear-armed state | AU | AL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Brazil |
No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | OPEC+ | No | No | No |
 Russia |
Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | OPEC+ | Yes | No | No |
 India |
No | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | No |
 China |
Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No |
 South Africa |
No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No |
 Egypt |
No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes |
 Ethiopia |
No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No |
 Iran |
No | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No |
 United Arab Emirates |
No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes |
 Indonesia |
No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
Notes
- The actual area under PRC control is 9,596,960.[citation needed]
- Saudi Arabia's BRICS membership is disputed. Official BRICS sources list Saudi Arabia as a BRICS member, while the country maintains ambiguity regarding its status. See Status of Saudi Arabia for discussion of its status.
- The General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam is the leading position in the Communist Party of Vietnam.