What would a basic income cost in Eswatini?
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Total cost per year
24.1 billion Swazi emalangeni
about 1.35 billion US dollars
1.26 million people × 1,600 Swazi emalangeni a month × 12 months
Compared with
- Government expense (central) (2021)106%
- Government revenue (central, excl. grants) (2021)104%
- Tax revenue (central government) (2021)107%
- GDP (nominal) (2025)26.1%
Eswatini in numbers
Eswatini has a population of 1.26 million (2025) and a GDP of 92.3 billion Swazi emalangeni (about 5.16 billion US dollars) in 2025.
Paying everyone 1,600 Swazi emalangeni a month would cost 24.1 billion Swazi emalangeni a year (about 1.35 billion US dollars), or 26.1% of GDP. That equals 106% of central government expense (2021), 104% of its revenue (2021), and 107% of its tax revenue (2021).
Children only (under 18: 493,138) would cost 9.47 billion Swazi emalangeni a year (10.3% of GDP); adults only (18 and over: 763,036), 14.7 billion Swazi emalangeni (15.9%).
Default amount: 1,600 Swazi emalangeni a month is the World Bank's international poverty line of $3.00 a day, converted into Swazi emalangeni 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), 2021
- 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.