Income in Guinea-Bissau
The median income in Guinea-Bissau is about $3.12 a day per person (2021 PPP dollars) — richer than 14% of everyone alive. Half of Guinea-Bissau lives on less than that.
The world's own median person — about $7.73 a day — would stand in the top 8% of Guinea-Bissau.
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The curve
Daily income per person, log scale, PPP dollars — the same curve the machine walks you across.
What it takes to stand where
Take-home income per person, in today's XOF, at each point on the curve of Guinea-Bissau (the machine's convention: household take-home divided by the people it supports).
| Richer than… | per year, per person | per day (PPP $) |
|---|---|---|
| 10% of Guinea-Bissau | F CFA 154,123 | $1.58 |
| 25% of Guinea-Bissau | F CFA 206,310 | $2.12 |
| 50% of Guinea-Bissau | F CFA 303,856 | $3.12 |
| 75% of Guinea-Bissau | F CFA 458,466 | $4.70 |
| 90% of Guinea-Bissau | F CFA 691,601 | $7.09 |
| 99% of Guinea-Bissau | F CFA 1,585,122 | $16 |
Rounded, never inflated: the machine floors "richer than" claims.
The four levels in Guinea-Bissau
How much of Guinea-Bissau and of the world lives on each of four income levels. The cuts are the World Bank's $3.00 (international poverty line) and $8.30 (upper-middle-income line), both 2021 PPP; the top cut, $33, is the machine's own, four times the $8.30 line. The objects are what an income on each level tends to buy across the world's surveys — not a description of any one country.
| Level | per day (PPP $) | What tends to come with it, worldwide | Guinea-Bissau | World |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Level 1 | under $3.00 | a fire to cook on, water carried home from the well, everywhere on foot | 47% | 13% |
| Level 2 | $3.00–$8.30 | a bicycle, a gas canister for the stove, a tap within walking distance | 47% | 39% |
| Level 3 | $8.30–$33 | a motorbike, a gas stove, a bank account | 6% | 32% |
| Level 4 | $33+ | a car, a fridge, hot water from the tap | <1% | 15% |
- Level 1 · under $3.00 a dayGuinea-Bissau 47% · World 13%a fire to cook on, water carried home from the well, everywhere on foot
- Level 2 · $3.00–$8.30 a dayGuinea-Bissau 47% · World 39%a bicycle, a gas canister for the stove, a tap within walking distance
- Level 3 · $8.30–$33 a dayGuinea-Bissau 6% · World 32%a motorbike, a gas stove, a bank account
- Level 4 · $33+ a dayGuinea-Bissau <1% · World 15%a car, a fridge, hot water from the tap
About 47% of Guinea-Bissau lives on Level 1, under $3.00 a day per person; worldwide, roughly one in seven people do.
The line that moved
In Guinea-Bissau, 51% lived under the $3.00 line at the 1991 survey; 40% at the 2021 one — a fall of 10 points in 30 years.
Share of Guinea-Bissau under $3.00 a day (2021 prices) at each national survey, World Bank PIP via Our World in Data; the faint line is the world's.
Worldwide, the share under the World Bank's $3.00-a-day line fell from about 43% in 1990 to about 10% today (Our World in Data; the latest years are the Bank's nowcast). Where the lift came, it came the unglamorous way: wages, harvests, workshops.
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Where this comes from
The World Bank's Poverty and Inequality Platform percentile distribution for Guinea-Bissau (survey year 2021), in 2021 PPP dollars; incomes typed in today's money are deflated to 2021 prices with the national CPI and converted with the 2021 consumption-PPP factor. Snapshot fetched September 2026. Full methodology & honesty rules.
Neighbours on the curve
The countries whose median income sits nearest to Guinea-Bissau's — and a few far from it, for scale.