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Basic income cost calculator

What would a basic income cost in Malta?

Pick a country, who gets it and how much a month. Everything is calculated on this device; nothing is sent anywhere.

Country
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How much a month per person?

Total cost per year

390 million euros

about 440 million US dollars

579,704 people × 56 euros a month × 12 months

Compared with

  • Government expense (central) (2023)4.7%
  • Government revenue (central, excl. grants) (2024)4.8%
  • Tax revenue (central government) (2024)6.6%
  • GDP (nominal) (2025)1.6%
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Malta in numbers

Malta has a population of 579,704 (2025) and a GDP of 24.6 billion euros (about 27.8 billion US dollars) in 2025.

Paying everyone 56 euros a month would cost 390 million euros a year (about 440 million US dollars), or 1.6% of GDP. That equals 4.7% of central government expense (2023), 4.8% of its revenue (2024), and 6.6% of its tax revenue (2024).

Children only (under 18: 84,538) would cost 56.8 million euros a year (0.23% of GDP); adults only (18 and over: 495,166), 333 million euros (1.4%).

Default amount: 56 euros a month is the World Bank's international poverty line of $3.00 a day (2021 PPP), converted into euros 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
GDP
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), 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.

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