What would a basic income cost in Laos?
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Total cost per year
51 trillion Laotian kips
about 2.5 billion US dollars
7.87 million people × 540,000 Laotian kips a month × 12 months
Compared with
- Government expense (central) (2022)132%
- Government revenue (central, excl. grants) (2022)98.0%
- Tax revenue (central government) (2022)113%
- GDP (nominal) (2025)13.6%
Laos in numbers
Laos has a population of 7.87 million (2025) and a GDP of 374 trillion Laotian kips (about 18.3 billion US dollars) in 2025.
Paying everyone 540,000 Laotian kips a month would cost 51 trillion Laotian kips a year (about 2.5 billion US dollars), or 13.6% of GDP. That equals 132% of central government expense (2022), 98.0% of its revenue (2022), and 113% of its tax revenue (2022).
Children only (under 18: 2.8 million) would cost 18.1 trillion Laotian kips a year (4.8% of GDP); adults only (18 and over: 5.08 million), 32.9 trillion Laotian kips (8.8%).
Default amount: 540,000 Laotian kips a month is the World Bank's international poverty line of $3.00 a day (2021 PPP), converted into Laotian kips 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), 2022
- 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.