What would a basic income cost in Romania?
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Total cost per year
45.6 billion Romanian lei
about 10.2 billion US dollars
19 million people × 200 Romanian lei a month × 12 months
Compared with
- Government expense (central) (2022)6.4%
- Government revenue (central, excl. grants) (2024)7.8%
- Tax revenue (central government) (2024)14.7%
- GDP (nominal) (2025)2.4%
Romania in numbers
Romania has a population of 19 million (2025) and a GDP of 1.92 trillion Romanian lei (about 429 billion US dollars) in 2025.
Paying everyone 200 Romanian lei a month would cost 45.6 billion Romanian lei a year (about 10.2 billion US dollars), or 2.4% of GDP. That equals 6.4% of central government expense (2022), 7.8% of its revenue (2024), and 14.7% of its tax revenue (2024).
Children only (under 18: 3.6 million) would cost 8.64 billion Romanian lei a year (0.45% of GDP); adults only (18 and over: 15.4 million), 37 billion Romanian lei (1.9%).
Default amount: 200 Romanian lei a month is the World Bank's international poverty line of $3.00 a day (2021 PPP), converted into Romanian lei 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, 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.