What would a basic income cost in Macao?
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Total cost per year
3.7 billion Macanese patacas
about 461 million US dollars
685,900 people × 450 Macanese patacas a month × 12 months
Compared with
- Government expense (central) (2023)4.5%
- Government revenue (central, excl. grants) (2024)2.8%
- Tax revenue (central government) (2024)3.2%
- GDP (nominal) (2025)0.89%
Macao in numbers
Macao has a population of 685,900 (2025) and a GDP of 418 billion Macanese patacas (about 52.1 billion US dollars) in 2025.
Paying everyone 450 Macanese patacas a month would cost 3.7 billion Macanese patacas a year (about 461 million US dollars), or 0.89% of GDP. That equals 4.5% of central government expense (2023), 2.8% of its revenue (2024), and 3.2% of its tax revenue (2024).
Children only (under 18: 116,649) would cost 630 million Macanese patacas a year (0.15% of GDP); adults only (18 and over: 569,251), 3.07 billion Macanese patacas (0.74%).
Default amount: 450 Macanese patacas a month is the World Bank's international poverty line of $3.00 a day (2021 PPP), converted into Macanese patacas 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.