What would a basic income cost in Costa Rica?
Pick a country, who gets it and how much a month. Everything is calculated on this device; nothing is sent anywhere.
Total cost per year
1.79 trillion Costa Rican colóns
about 3.56 billion US dollars
5.15 million people × 29,000 Costa Rican colóns a month × 12 months
Compared with
- Government expense (central) (2023)12.1%
- Government revenue (central, excl. grants) (2024)12.6%
- Tax revenue (central government) (2024)25.7%
- GDP (nominal) (2025)3.5%
Costa Rica in numbers
Costa Rica has a population of 5.15 million (2025) and a GDP of 51.8 trillion Costa Rican colóns (about 103 billion US dollars) in 2025.
Paying everyone 29,000 Costa Rican colóns a month would cost 1.79 trillion Costa Rican colóns a year (about 3.56 billion US dollars), or 3.5% of GDP. That equals 12.1% of central government expense (2023), 12.6% of its revenue (2024), and 25.7% of its tax revenue (2024).
Children only (under 18: 1.16 million) would cost 404 billion Costa Rican colóns a year (0.78% of GDP); adults only (18 and over: 3.99 million), 1.39 trillion Costa Rican colóns (2.7%).
Default amount: 29,000 Costa Rican colóns a month is the World Bank's international poverty line of $3.00 a day (2021 PPP), converted into Costa Rican colóns with the World Bank's PPP conversion factor for household consumption (2025) and rounded to two significant figures. It is a reference point, not a policy proposal; change it above.
How to read this
This is the gross cost: the total paid out. The real net cost depends on which taxes fund it, which benefits or tax breaks it replaces and whether the payment is taxed. The population, budget and GDP figures are not all from the same year (see the sources).
Sources for the figures
- Population
- World Bank: population, total (SP.POP.TOTL), and population by single year of age 0 to 17 (SP.POP.AG00.FE.IN … SP.POP.AG17.MA.IN), 2025
- SP.POP.AG00.FE.IN … SP.POP.AG17.MA.IN
- Government expense and tax revenue
- World Bank: central government expense, revenue excluding grants and tax revenue, % of GDP (GC.XPN.TOTL.GD.ZS, GC.REV.XGRT.GD.ZS, GC.TAX.TOTL.GD.ZS), 2023, 2024
- Default amount
- World Bank: international poverty line of $3.00 a day (2021 PPP), June 2025 update
- World Bank: PPP conversion factor, household final consumption (PA.NUS.PRVT.PP), 2025
- Retrieved from the World Bank API on November 9, 2026 (CC BY 4.0). Government figures are central government, as a share of GDP in their own year, applied to the latest GDP.