What would a basic income cost in Tonga?
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Total cost per year
212 million Tongan paʻanga
about 88.4 million US dollars
103,742 people × 170 Tongan paʻanga a month × 12 months
Compared with
- Government expense (central) (2023)37.5%
- Government revenue (central, excl. grants) (2023)57.5%
- Tax revenue (central government) (2023)63.6%
- GDP (nominal) (2025)13.0%
Tonga in numbers
Tonga has a population of 103,742 (2025) and a GDP of 1.63 billion Tongan paʻanga (about 679 million US dollars) in 2025.
Paying everyone 170 Tongan paʻanga a month would cost 212 million Tongan paʻanga a year (about 88.4 million US dollars), or 13.0% of GDP. That equals 37.5% of central government expense (2023), 57.5% of its revenue (2023), and 63.6% of its tax revenue (2023).
Children only (under 18: 43,466) would cost 88.7 million Tongan paʻanga a year (5.4% of GDP); adults only (18 and over: 60,276), 123 million Tongan paʻanga (7.6%).
Default amount: 170 Tongan paʻanga a month is the World Bank's international poverty line of $3.00 a day (2021 PPP), converted into Tongan paʻanga 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
- 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.