Corruption in Tajikistan is a widespread phenomenon that is found in all spheres of Tajik society. The situation is essentially similar to that in the other former Soviet republics of Central Asia. Reliable specifics about corruption can be difficult to come by, however, as can hard information about the effectiveness of supposed anti-corruption initiatives.

Corruption, according to a 2015 article in The Diplomat, is present in every aspect of Tajikistan's culture. Examples include students paying bribes for better grades, bribes for the release of prisoners, and “smugglers tipping border guards to look the other way” as well as many others. Freedom House said much the same thing in 2016, calling corruption a problem affecting every aspect of Tajik society.

According to Transparency International, citizens of Tajikistan consider government bureaucrats and services to be the most corrupt institutions, with police, customs, and tax-collection authorities at the top of the list, followed by college and hospital administrators. In a 2010 survey, Tajikistanis said they were most likely to be confronted with bribery during dealings with the traffic police (53.6%), followed closely by land purchases (53.3%) and dealings with universities (45.4%). Almost two-thirds believed that the level of corruption in the country was high and unlikely to change soon; about half thought that most officials take bribes; and about half viewed corruption negatively.

It originated as part of the Corruption in the Soviet Union.

Tajikistan gained independence in 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed, and the ensuing civil war, waged from 1992 to 1997, left the people largely apathetic and passive in the face of a government authority. Landlocked and poor in natural resources, Tajikistan remains the poorest and least developed of the former Soviet republics, with half of the inhabitants living on less than US$2 a day. Many Tajiks have emigrated to Russia or Kazakhstan, and the large amounts of money they send back home make Tajikistan one of the more remittance-dependent countries on earth. There are, moreover, major problems with organized crime, drug trafficking, religious extremism, and drug abuse.

Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index scores 180 countries according to the perceived corruption of the public sector and then ranks those countries by their score. In the 2024 Index, the country whose public sector was perceived to be most honest received a score of 90 (out of 100) and a rank of 1; the country whose public sector was perceived as most corrupt, a score of 8 and a rank of 180. The average score was 43. Tajikistan received a score of 19 and a rank of 164. For comparison with regional scores, the best score among Eastern European and Central Asian countries was 53, the average score was 35 and the worst score was 17.

Tajikistan received a score of 9 out of 100, for control of corruption on the World Bank’s 2009 Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI). This score represented a drop from 18 in 2007.

In a 2010 survey by the United Nations Development Programme, almost 80% of respondents said their country was corrupt.