Poorest Countries in the World 2024

Tax Consultant July 10, 2025


The world's poorest countries are burdened by civil wars, ethnic, and sectarian strife. For such countries, COVID-19, runaway inflation, and the war in Ukraine made bad situations worse.

There is enough wealth and resources in the world to ensure that every human being has a decent living standard. Yet, there are people who are starving and dying in countries like Burundi, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic. Other likely titles to be named the world's poorest countries, Afghanistan, Syria, and Eritrea, deserve to be included in this list, where year after year of political instability and conflict would make any assessment impossible due to a lack of reliable economic figures.

So, how do we come to declare which countries are the poorest in the world? Most times, GDP per capita may be regarded as a standard measure, although it might offer compensation for differences in living costs and rate of inflation through the use of purchasing-power parity (PPP). This improved metric should give a clearer view of an individual's buying power in any given country in question.

It is also next to impossible to cite one or a few reasons for long-standing poverty. Corrupt governments can ruin what might be a rich nation. It can also be a country with a history of abusive colonization, one that suffered terribly from lack of the rule of law, one that has gone through political trauma like wars and social unrest, and weather extremes or aggressive and hostile neighbors. These weaknesses are complementary: a country that is already burdened with debt will not concern itself with having an educated citizenry, but without an educated workforce, it cannot break free from that debt cycle.

The greatest social and economic fallout on the poor of the world has been inflicted by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the world’s poorest countries, characterized by high levels of informal employment, no social safety nets were afforded for businesses to stay afloat or workers to receive their pay. According to the World Bank, students in low- and middle-income countries lose up to 10 percent of expected average annual income.

Earlier than Covid-19, the proportion of the world’s population that lived in extreme poverty (less than $1.90 a day) had shrunk to less than 10% down from way above 35% back in 1990. Instead of advancing, the pandemic caused a regression: by the end of 2022, the World Bank estimated that an additional 198 million people might have slipped into, or more accurately, increased the levels of those already living in extreme poverty, as the International Poverty Line (IPL) was concurrently turbocharged to $2.15  in response to the rising cost of living. In more recent times, the institution stated that, for the first time this century, half of the 75 countries in the world that are most vulnerable are facing a widening income gap with the richest economies. Over the last two decades, it had been generally accepted that, since, in the case of poorer nations, living standards have been rising faster than in mature economies, it would ultimately come to economic convergence between the rich and poor. Alas today, one-third of the 75 incredibly vulnerable nations, home to a quarter of humanity or 1.9 billion people, is poorer now than even before the Covid-19 pandemic.

The numbers are stark: in the 10 richest countries in the world, the average yearly per-capita purchasing power is over $110,000, while in the 10 poorest it is less than $1,500. The doomsday scenario is that, because of poverty, more poverty would result. In the newest World Economic Outlook report, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) explains why poor nations face a grim future: “The growth decline implies worsening prospects or living standards and global poverty reduction.


10. Yemen 🇾🇪

Current International Dollars: 1,996 | View Yemen's GDP & Economic Data

Home to nearly 35 million, this oil-rich, well-poor nation on the Arabian Peninsula has been caught in a web of violent conflict since late 2014 when the Saudi-backed government was engaged in fighting the Houthi rebels. The war has since claimed more than 150,000 lives, wrecked the economy, and destroyed the skeleton of the national infrastructure. Consequently, in this oil-rich land today 80% of the population is impoverished.

9. Madagascar🇲🇬

Current International Dollars: 1,979 | View Madagascar's GDP & Economic Data

Ever since independence from France in 1960, Madagascar has gone through political upheaval, violent coups, and disputed elections. Elected in 2019, president Andry Rajoelina came to power on an anti-corruption, anti-poverty, and pro-economy platform. Mostly, they turned out to be just that: promises. Madagascar still remains one of the poorest countries in the world with around 75% of its population living in extreme poverty, slow growth and almost 8% inflation. Still, Rajoelina was re-elected in December 2023.

The country had also been facing some unprecedented challenges in fairness. Even without the economic and social impacts from the Covid-19 pandemic, food prices rose steeply after the collapse of grain deliveries from Ukraine following the Russian invasion in 2022, worsening the plight of the island's people. Moreover, Madagascar is among the 10 most climate-hazard-vulnerable countries in the world, with droughts, flooding, and cyclones bringing death, displacement, and destruction to homes, infrastructure, and crops.

8. Liberia🇱🇷

Current International Dollars: 1,882 | View Liberia's GDP & Economic Data

Africa's oldest republic has been ranked among the poorest countries in the world for many years. Expectations were high with the election of former football star George Weah as president in 2018. His years in office were characterized by intense inflation, unemployment, and negative economic growth; in 2023, the opposition leader and former Vice President, Joseph Boakai, defeated Weah in fresh elections. Boakai seems to have it easier than Weah: growth, after contracting in 2020 and 2021, re-started in 2022, and is now projected to reach around 5.3% in 2024 and to stay above 6% for the foreseen years.

7. Malawi🇲🇼

Current International Dollars: 1,712 | View Malawi's GDP & Economic Data

Food insecurity is very high in the rural areas. One of Africa's small nations, the economy of Malawi-nearly entirely dependent on rain-fed crops-is vulnerable to weather-related shocks. There has been stability since independence in 1964 for Malawi. Protests arose, however, in 2020 when the constitutional court annulled the win of former president Peter Mutharika's general elections due to vote tampering. His place was taken by Lazarus Chakwera, who was both a theologian and politician, and had sworn that he wanted to provide leadership that would make everybody prosper, though actual structural changes have been slow to manifest. The economy is presently in crisis, facing fuel shortages, soaring food prices, and massive currency depreciation. According to 2023 estimates by the World Bank, more than 70% of people in Malawi live below the international poverty line.

6.Niger

Current International Dollars: 1,675 | View GDP and Economic Data of Niger

Niger's majority landlocked territory is mostly covered by the Sahara Desert coupled with an increasing and mostly subsistence agricultural population, and thus the chances that desertification would have to be thrust upon Niger are more than good. The food situation has predominantly been poor alongside disease, mortality and insecurity; recurrent clashes in the army with the Islamic State (ISIS) affiliate Boko Haram have displaced thousands.

In 2021, this West African nation installed its newly elected president-ex-teacher and former interior minister Mohamed Bazoum-as the first head of his nation in the course of its first democratic transfer of power. The economy had been expanding at 12% in 2022, and for the first glance, things looked well. However, in the summer of 2023, Bazoum was ousted and imprisoned with members of his presidential guard, after which the military junta has continued commanding the nation.

5. Mozambique🥉

Current International Dollars: 1,649 | See Mozambique's GDP & Economic Data

This former Portuguese colony is endowed with abundant resources and a strategic location. Over the past ten years, it has had an average GDP growth rate above 7%. Yet, it ranks among the bottom ten poorest countries in the world, and dismal climatic conditions and political instability usually rank among the most significant causes. Worse still, since 2017, the hydrocarbons-rich northern region of the country has been the center of a series of attacks by Islamic insurgents. Nonetheless, there is good news from the IMF, with high growth expected in the years to come: around 5% in 2024 and 2025, then projecting double digits in the latter part of the decade.

4. Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)🏆

Current International Dollars: 1,552 | See DRC's GDP & Economic Data

For most part, the history of this country is that it has been suffering from years of greedy dictatorship, political instability would further aggravate the situation in which the country is poor under one or other form of continuous violence. About 65% of the country's population, which is about 1 million strong, gets by on under $2.15 a day. But, according to the World Bank, it has some of the resources and potential necessary to become one of the richest countries in Africa and a growth driver for the entire continent. The country is already the world number one producer of cobalt and also Africa's leading source of copper, which are essentials in the production of electric vehicles.


3. Central African Republic (CAR)

Current International Dollars: 1,123| View CAR's GDP & Economic Data

The Central African Republic is a rich country with an impressive mineral wealth of gold, oil, uranium, and diamonds, but it has very poor people and has been among the poorest countries of the world for most of the last decade. It was in 2016 that, for the first time since independence from France in 1960, the Central African Republic elected a president by democratic means: Faustin Archange Touadéra, a former mathematics professor and prime minister, on the basis of a campaign based around being a peacemaker between the Muslim minority and vast Christian majority.

While his election has been seen as an important rebuilding of the country, reaching vast areas under rebel/militia control, growth in the last few years has been slow but observable and is backed by forestry products as well as a revitalized agricultural sector and the partial resumption of diamond sales.

2. Burundi 🇧🇮

Current International Dollars: 916 | See Burundi's GDP & Economic Data

This tiny, landlocked country does not boast many natural resources and has a civil war lasting from 1993 to 2005, all of which give it the second-poorest ranking in the world. About 80% of Burundi's nearly 13 million citizens depend on subsistence farming, creating food insecurity almost double the average of sub-Saharan Africa. Overall, access to water and sanitation is pretty low, and less than 5% of the population has electricity. Under President Evariste Ndayishimiye, attempts are made to reenergize the economy and regen up diplomatic avenues, and the US and the European Union reinstated their assistance level in 2022 after removing financial sanctions. Unfortunately, while the growth is improving, the inflation figures are expected to stand very high at around 22% this year.

1. South Sudan

Current International Dollars: 455 | View South Sudan's GDP & Economic Data

The very poorest among the poorest countries in the world, South Sudan, has been riven by violence from the moment it gained independence in 2011. Rich in oil reserves, this landlocked country of some 15 million people represents an exact model for the standard "resource curse," under which abundance becomes a facilitator of political and social division, inequality, corruption, and war. Its majority population participates in traditional agriculture, though extreme climate events and violence often inhibit farmers from planting or harvesting their crops. This year an estimated 9 million people - or, over 60% of South Sudan's population - will require humanitarian assistance.

  

World’s Poorest Countries 2024

RankCountry/TerritoryGDP-PPP per capita ($)
1🇸🇸South Sudan455
2🇧🇮Burundi916
3🇨🇫Central African Republic1,123
4🇨🇩Democratic Republic of the Congo1,552
5🇲🇿Mozambique1,649
6🇳🇪Niger1,675
7🇲🇼Malawi1,712
8🇱🇷Liberia1,882
9🇲🇬Madagascar1,979
10🇾🇪Yemen1,996
11🇸🇴Somalia2,062
12🇸🇱Sierra Leone2,189
13🇹🇩Chad2,620
14🇸🇧Solomon Islands2,713
15🇲🇱Mali2,714
16🇻🇺Burkina Faso2,781
17🇹🇬Togo2,911
18🇻🇺Vanuatu2,939
19Browse a full set of economic indicators Zimbabwe2,975
20🇬🇲The Gambia2,993
21🇭🇹Haiti3,108
22🇱🇸Lesotho3,227
23🇬🇼Guinea-Bissau3,239
24🇺🇬Uganda3,345
25🇬🇳Guinea3,366
26🇷🇼Rwanda3,367
27🇸🇩Sudan3,443
28🇰🇲Comoros3,532
29🇵🇬Papua New Guinea3,534
30🇰🇮Kiribati3,614
31🇹🇿Tanzania3,746
32🇹🇱Timor-Leste3,767
33🇪🇹Ethiopia4,020
34🇸🇹São Tomé and Príncipe4,238
35🇿🇲Zambia4,361
36🇧🇯Benin4,558
37🇸🇳Senegal4,661
38🇫🇲Micronesia4,691
39🇨🇬Republic of Congo4,740
40🇨🇲Cameroon4,842
41🇳🇵Nepal5,032
42🇲🇲Myanmar5,203
43🇹🇯Tajikistan5,832
44🇹🇻Tuvalu6,056
45🇲🇭Marshall Islands6,313
46🇳🇬Nigeria6,340
47🇼🇸Samoa6,721
48🇰🇬Kyrgyz Republic6,790
49🇨🇮Côte d’Ivoire6,860
50🇵🇰Pakistan6,955
51🇰🇪Kenya6,976
52🇦🇴Angola7,153
53🇬🇭Ghana7,156
54🇹🇴Tonga7,462
55🇭🇳Honduras7,503
56🇲🇷Mauritania7,680
57🇩🇯Djibouti7,707
58🇳🇮Nicaragua8,137
59🇰🇭Cambodia8,287
60🇻🇪Venezuela8,486
61🇧🇩Bangladesh9,416
62🇮🇳India10,123
63🇱🇦Lao P.D.R.10,242
64🇨🇻Cabo Verde10,304
65🇧🇴Bolivia10,693
66🇳🇷Nauru10,823
67🇺🇿Uzbekistan10,936
68🇲🇦Morocco10,947
69🇬🇹Guatemala11,006
70🇧🇿Belize11,320
71🇮🇶Iraq11,937
72🇳🇦Namibia12,008
73🇵🇭Philippines12,192
74🇯🇴Jordan12,402
75🇸🇻El Salvador12,561
76🇸🇿Eswatini12,637
77🇯🇲Jamaica13,543
78🇹🇳Tunisia13,645
79🇪🇨Ecuador14,485
80🇩🇲Dominica15,280
81🇺🇦Ukraine15,464
82🇻🇳Vietnam15,470
83🇧🇹Bhutan15,978
84🇵🇾Paraguay16,291
85🇿🇦South Africa16,424
86🇩🇿Algeria16,483
87🇲🇳Mongolia16,504
88🇵🇪Peru16,631
89🇽🇰Kosovo16,775
90🇮🇩Indonesia16,861
91🇵🇼Palau17,381
92🇫🇯Fiji17,403
93🇪🇬Egypt17,614
94🇲🇩Moldova17,902
95🇬🇶Equatorial Guinea18,378
96🇸🇷Suriname18,928
97🇻🇨St. Vincent and the Grenadines19,196
98🇦🇿Azerbaijan19,328
99🇬🇦Gabon19,452
100🇱🇨St. Lucia19,718
101🇹🇲Turkmenistan19,729
102🇨🇴Colombia19,770
104🇧🇼Botswana20,097
105🇧🇧Barbados20,592
105🇧🇦Bosnia and Herzegovina20,623
106🇦🇱Albania<20,632
107🇧🇷Brazil20,809
108🇮🇷Islamic Republic of Iran21,220
109🇦🇲Armenia21,746
110🇬🇩Grenada21,799
111🇲🇰North Macedonia22,249
112🇹🇭Thailand23,401
113🇨🇳China25,015
114🇬🇪Georgia25,248
115🇧🇾Belarus25,685
116🇲🇽Mexico25,963
117🇦🇷Argentina26,390
118🇱🇾Libya26,456
119🇩🇴Dominican Republic27,120
120🇦🇬Antigua and Barbuda27,309
121🇷🇸Serbia27,985
122🇨🇷Costa Rica28,558
123🇲🇪Montenegro29,696
124🇺🇾Uruguay30,170
125🇨🇱Chile31,005
126🇲🇺Mauritius32,094
127🇹🇹Trinidad and Tobago32,685
128🇰🇿Kazakhstan34,534
129🇧🇬Bulgaria35,963
130🇲🇻Maldives37,433
131🇷🇺Russia38,292
132🇰🇳St. Kitts and Nevis38,870
133🇲🇾Malaysia39,030
134🇴🇲Oman39,859
135🇬🇷Greece41,188
136🇱🇻Latvia41,730
137🇸🇨Seychelles43,151
138🇷🇴Romania43,179
139🇵🇷Puerto Rico43,219
140🇹🇷Türkiye43,921
141🇸🇰Slovak Republic44,081
142🇵🇦Panama44,797
143🇪🇪Estonia45,122
144🇭🇺Hungary45,692
145🇭🇷Croatia45,702
146🇧🇸The Bahamas46,524
147🇵🇹Portugal47,070
148🇵🇱Poland49,060
149🇨🇿Czech Republic50,475
150🇱🇹Lithuania50,600
151🇪🇸Spain52,012
152🇰🇼Kuwait52,274
153🇸🇮Slovenia53,287
154🇳🇿New Zealand53,797
155🇯🇵Japan54,184
156🇦🇼Aruba54,716
157🇮🇱Israel55,533
158🇮🇹Italy56,905
159🇨🇾Cyprus58,733
160🇬🇧United Kingdom58,880
161🇰🇷South Korea59,330
162🇫🇷France60,339
163🇨🇦Canada60,495
164🇫🇮Finland60,851
165🇧🇭Bahrain62,671
166🇦🇺Australia66,627
167🇩🇪Germany67,245
168🇲🇹Malta67,682
169🇧🇪Belgium68,079
170🇦🇩Andorra69,146
171🇸🇪Sweden69,177
172🇦🇹Austria69,460
173🇸🇦Saudi Arabia70,333
174🇮🇸Iceland73,784
175🇳🇱Netherlands74,158
176🇭🇰Hong Kong SAR75,128
177🇹🇼Taiwan76,858
178🇧🇳Brunei Darussalam77,534
179🇩🇰Denmark77,641
180🇬🇾Guyana80,137
181🇳🇴Norway82,832
182🇺🇸United States85,373
183🇸🇲San Marino86,989
184🇨🇭Switzerland91,932
185🇦🇪United Arab Emirates96,846
186🇶🇦Qatar112,283
187🇸🇬Singapore133,737
188🇮🇪Ireland133,895
189🇲🇴Macao SAR134,141
190🇱🇺Luxembourg143,743
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