What would a basic income cost in Germany?
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
1.01 trillion euros
about 1.14 trillion US dollars
84.1 million people × €1,000 a month × 12 months
Compared with
- Government expense (central) (2022)72.4%
- Government revenue (central, excl. grants) (2024)76.8%
- Tax revenue (central government) (2024)207%
- GDP (nominal) (2025)22.6%
Germany in numbers
Germany has a population of 84.1 million (2025) and a GDP of 4.47 trillion euros (about 5.05 trillion US dollars) in 2025.
Paying everyone €1,000 a month would cost 1.01 trillion euros a year (about 1.14 trillion US dollars), or 22.6% of GDP. That equals 72.4% of central government expense (2022), 76.8% of its revenue (2024), and 207% of its tax revenue (2024).
Children only (under 18: 14 million) would cost 168 billion euros a year (3.8% of GDP); adults only (18 and over: 70.1 million), 841 billion euros (18.8%).
Default amount: €1,000 a month is a round figure chosen by the editors for this calculator. For comparison, the World Bank's poverty line of $3.00 a day is about €66 a month here; paying that to everyone would cost 1.5% of GDP.
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
- GDP
- World Bank, World Development Indicators: GDP in current local currency units (NY.GDP.MKTP.CN), 2025. Updated 8 Oct 2026. India and Egypt report on a fiscal-year basis
- World Bank: GDP in current local currency (NY.GDP.MKTP.CN) and in current US dollars (NY.GDP.MKTP.CD), 2025
- 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), 2022, 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.