We investigate the impact of varying levels of government ownership on emerging economy (EM) state-owned enterprises’ (SOEs) international expansion. Grounding our reasoning in resource dependence theory and agency theory, we argue that this impact follows an inverted-U curve, so that low levels of government ownership facilitate the international expansion of EM SOEs, whereas high levels of government ownership hinder it. We further argue that this inverted-U curve relationship is moderated by the government’s efficiency and pro-market orientation, as well as by the valuable resource possessed by the firm, both internationally and through its alliances with foreign partners. We test our hypotheses on a sample 414 SOEs from 9 emerging economies. The results support most of the hypotheses.