The Top 20 Most Popular Halloween Costumes Around The World

Halloween’s huge growth in popularity across the world has seen many people be willing to spend a large amount of money on sweets, decorations and costumes to make this festive celebration as memorable as possible. According to a survey carried out by the National Retail Federation, consumers in the US are expected to spend a whopping $10.14billion on Halloween, with $3.32billion of that being spent on costumes!! Across the pond in the UK, around £510 million was spent on costumes in 2020 according to the Fairyland trust.

Our quest to find the most popular costumes around the world revealed that:

- Harley Quinn is the most searched Halloween costume in France, Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines.

- The most popular costume in Romania and Turkey is Spiderman.

- The UK searched for the Halloween classic Skeleton costume more than any other costume idea.

- Wonder Woman was the most popular costume in the US.

- Spain and Japan prefer to dress up as Witches on Halloween.

- Over in Canada, the most searched Halloween costume was another classic, a Pirate.

- The most popular costume idea in Germany is The Joker.

- Poland’s most searched costume is another classic, a Clown.

- Another classic costume, a Ghost, was Italy’s most popular Halloween costume.

- Brazil’s Halloween costume of choice is Vampire.

Girls no longer want to be Princesses

Princess costumes have decreased in popularity by 57% globally while costumes like Harley Quinn have increased in popularity by 11% and despite coronavirus having an impact on costume searches and sales, Witch costumes have maintained the same popularity over the years.

Scary costumes are no longer a big part of Halloween?

Our study shows that over the years, Halloween costumes are no longer reflecting the frightening and chilling theme of Halloween, instead, they seem to be decreasing in popularity exponentially. For example, Scary, Zombie and Monster costumes have decreased in search volume by 79%, 71% and 55% respectively over the last 5 years.

Superheroes/heroines and Villains a global favourite

As the frightful theme of Halloween seems to be taking a backseat, superheroes/heroines and villains are increasing in popularity! A total of 14 out of 15 countries studied had 2 or more Superheroes or Villains in their top 3 most popular costumes.

Halloween Classics Still Going Strong

With Film and TV taking over the public's inspiration when it comes to dressing up, some Halloween costume classics have maintained their popularity. Not only are 4 classic costumes (Skeleton, Vampire, Witch and Zombie) in the Top 10 ranking, but 10 out of 15 countries had a classic costume (others include Ghost, Cat and Clown) in their top 3 most searched, and 4 out of 15 in their top 5 most searched costumes in the last 5 years.

Methodology

Using the Ahrefs platform, we analyzed Google search volume trends for the month of October, starting from October 2015 to October 2020, looking at 40 different Halloween costumes, which was then narrowed down to the top 20 most popular. We then ranked the most popular costumes per country and created a global ranking, taking into account how popular the Halloween costumes were in each country.

More info: twinkl.co.uk