This paper examines the effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) on different types of social spending (ie, education, health, and social security) by using fixed effect panel data from the 1995-2011 period. It also presents empirical data from 88 countries by comparing eight regional and economic level country groups, including Asia, Euro, Latin, Developing, Middle income, OECD and Transition economies. The results shows that while FDI inflows have a statistically significant negative effect on education spending in only the Asian Economies, there is a statistically significant negative effect of FDI inflows on health spending in the Euro, OECD and Transition economies, for which the Latin economies show positive and significant results. On the other hand, FDI inflows are also found to have some implications on social security spending that are negative and statistically significant in Developing, MINC and OECD economies in contrast to the statistically significant but positive effect seen in the Latin economies.