Applying Phosphorus (P) to global cropland supports crop growth and helps to address the increasing global food demand. However, poor management of P application leads to nutrient loss and environmental pollution in many countries, while some countries (e.g., India and Vietnam) are also facing the depletion of national phosphate rock reserves. One critical strategy to address these challenges is to improve phosphorus use efficiency (PUE) in crop production. The success of this strategy depends on improving regional PUE with advanced technologies and effective management strategies, and an understanding of relevant socio-economic and agronomic drivers influencing regional and global PUE. However, low-efficiency regions and the key drivers remain unclear, and no studies have quantified the impacts of PUE improvement on addressing P challenges. This study developed a unique database of P budget and PUE by country and crop type over 50 years, and examines the temporal and spatial patterns, and makes projection of future P budget under three scenarios with different PUE improvement levels. By studying the historical data, we found that PUE has been significantly affected by a country’s development stage, crop portfolios, nitrogen use efficiency (NUE), fertilizer to crop price ratio, and average farm size. By improving the global PUE in crop production from the current 60% to around 69-82% by 2050, we could decrease the global P surplus from 8.8 in 2010 to about 4.5-9 Tg P yr-1 by 2050. Improvement of some countries (e.g., China and India) and some crop types (e.g., fruit and vegetable) should be prioritized, as they currently have relatively lower PUE.