What would a basic income cost in Mauritius?
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Total cost per year
26.9 billion Mauritian rupees
about 584 million US dollars
1.24 million people × 1,800 Mauritian rupees a month × 12 months
Compared with
- Government expense (central) (2023)12.4%
- Government revenue (central, excl. grants) (2024)14.6%
- Tax revenue (central government) (2024)17.6%
- GDP (nominal) (2025)3.6%
Mauritius in numbers
Mauritius has a population of 1.24 million (2025) and a GDP of 743 billion Mauritian rupees (about 16.2 billion US dollars) in 2025.
Paying everyone 1,800 Mauritian rupees a month would cost 26.9 billion Mauritian rupees a year (about 584 million US dollars), or 3.6% of GDP. That equals 12.4% of central government expense (2023), 14.6% of its revenue (2024), and 17.6% of its tax revenue (2024).
Children only (under 18: 230,631) would cost 4.98 billion Mauritian rupees a year (0.67% of GDP); adults only (18 and over: 1.01 million), 21.9 billion Mauritian rupees (2.9%).
Default amount: 1,800 Mauritian rupees a month is the World Bank's international poverty line of $3.00 a day (2021 PPP), converted into Mauritian rupees 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.