What would a basic income cost in Kenya?
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
2.83 trillion Kenyan shillings
about 21.9 billion US dollars
57.5 million people × 4,100 Kenyan shillings a month × 12 months
Compared with
- Government expense (central) (2023)57.8%
- Government revenue (central, excl. grants) (2023)86.4%
- Tax revenue (central government) (2023)115%
- GDP (nominal) (2025)16.1%
Kenya in numbers
Kenya has a population of 57.5 million (2025) and a GDP of 17.6 trillion Kenyan shillings (about 136 billion US dollars) in 2025.
Paying everyone 4,100 Kenyan shillings a month would cost 2.83 trillion Kenyan shillings a year (about 21.9 billion US dollars), or 16.1% of GDP. That equals 57.8% of central government expense (2023), 86.4% of its revenue (2023), and 115% of its tax revenue (2023).
Children only (under 18: 24.9 million) would cost 1.23 trillion Kenyan shillings a year (7% of GDP); adults only (18 and over: 32.6 million), 1.6 trillion Kenyan shillings (9.1%).
Default amount: 4,100 Kenyan shillings a month is the World Bank's international poverty line of $3.00 a day (2021 PPP), converted into Kenyan shillings 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
- 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.