What would a basic income cost in Somalia?
Pick a country, who gets it and how much a month. Everything is calculated on this device; nothing is sent anywhere.
Total cost per year
637 trillion Somali shillings
about 21.2 billion US dollars
19.7 million people × 2.7 million Somali shillings a month × 12 months
Compared with
- Government expense (central) (2023)2,564%
- Government revenue (central, excl. grants) (2024)5,275%
- Tax revenue (central government) (2024)7,270%
- GDP (nominal) (2025)163%
Somalia in numbers
Somalia has a population of 19.7 million (2025) and a GDP of 391 trillion Somali shillings (about 13 billion US dollars) in 2025.
Paying everyone 2.7 million Somali shillings a month would cost 637 trillion Somali shillings a year (about 21.2 billion US dollars), or 163% of GDP. That equals 2,564% of central government expense (2023), 5,275% of its revenue (2024), and 7,270% of its tax revenue (2024).
Children only (under 18: 10.4 million) would cost 338 trillion Somali shillings a year (86.3% of GDP); adults only (18 and over: 9.23 million), 299 trillion Somali shillings (76.4%).
Default amount: 2.7 million Somali shillings a month is the World Bank's international poverty line of $3.00 a day, converted into Somali shillings at the exchange rate implied by the World Bank's GDP in local currency and in US dollars (2025), because there is no recent PPP conversion factor, 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
- 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.