What would a basic income cost in Guatemala?
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
69.5 billion Guatemalan quetzals
about 9.05 billion US dollars
18.7 million people × 310 Guatemalan quetzals a month × 12 months
Compared with
- Government expense (central) (2023)54.3%
- Government revenue (central, excl. grants) (2024)57.5%
- Tax revenue (central government) (2024)63.1%
- GDP (nominal) (2025)7.3%
Guatemala in numbers
Guatemala has a population of 18.7 million (2025) and a GDP of 947 billion Guatemalan quetzals (about 123 billion US dollars) in 2025.
Paying everyone 310 Guatemalan quetzals a month would cost 69.5 billion Guatemalan quetzals a year (about 9.05 billion US dollars), or 7.3% of GDP. That equals 54.3% of central government expense (2023), 57.5% of its revenue (2024), and 63.1% of its tax revenue (2024).
Children only (under 18: 6.94 million) would cost 25.8 billion Guatemalan quetzals a year (2.7% of GDP); adults only (18 and over: 11.7 million), 43.7 billion Guatemalan quetzals (4.6%).
Default amount: 310 Guatemalan quetzals a month is the World Bank's international poverty line of $3.00 a day (2021 PPP), converted into Guatemalan quetzals 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.