What would a basic income cost in Uganda?
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
74 trillion Ugandan shillings
about 20.1 billion US dollars
51.4 million people × 120,000 Ugandan shillings a month × 12 months
Compared with
- Government expense (central) (2023)196%
- Government revenue (central, excl. grants) (2024)231%
- Tax revenue (central government) (2024)257%
- GDP (nominal) (2025)32.5%
Uganda in numbers
Uganda has a population of 51.4 million (2025) and a GDP of 228 trillion Ugandan shillings (about 62 billion US dollars) in 2025.
Paying everyone 120,000 Ugandan shillings a month would cost 74 trillion Ugandan shillings a year (about 20.1 billion US dollars), or 32.5% of GDP. That equals 196% of central government expense (2023), 231% of its revenue (2024), and 257% of its tax revenue (2024).
Children only (under 18: 25.8 million) would cost 37.2 trillion Ugandan shillings a year (16.3% of GDP); adults only (18 and over: 25.6 million), 36.8 trillion Ugandan shillings (16.2%).
Default amount: 120,000 Ugandan shillings a month is the World Bank's international poverty line of $3.00 a day (2021 PPP), converted into Ugandan shillings 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.