Income in Tanzania
The median income in Tanzania is about $2.33 a day per person (2021 PPP dollars) — richer than 8% of everyone alive. Half of Tanzania lives on less than that.
The world's own median person — about $7.73 a day — would stand in the top 6% of Tanzania.
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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 TZS, at each point on the curve of Tanzania (the machine's convention: household take-home divided by the people it supports).
| Richer than… | per year, per person | per day (PPP $) |
|---|---|---|
| 10% of Tanzania | TZS 337,170 | $1.17 |
| 25% of Tanzania | TZS 456,256 | $1.59 |
| 50% of Tanzania | TZS 668,602 | $2.33 |
| 75% of Tanzania | TZS 1,064,598 | $3.71 |
| 90% of Tanzania | TZS 1,721,721 | $6.00 |
| 99% of Tanzania | TZS 6,327,326 | $22 |
Rounded, never inflated: the machine floors "richer than" claims.
The four levels in Tanzania
How much of Tanzania 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 | Tanzania | World |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Level 1 | under $3.00 | a fire to cook on, water carried home from the well, everywhere on foot | 65% | 13% |
| Level 2 | $3.00–$8.30 | a bicycle, a gas canister for the stove, a tap within walking distance | 30% | 39% |
| Level 3 | $8.30–$33 | a motorbike, a gas stove, a bank account | 5% | 32% |
| Level 4 | $33+ | a car, a fridge, hot water from the tap | <1% | 15% |
- Level 1 · under $3.00 a dayTanzania 65% · World 13%a fire to cook on, water carried home from the well, everywhere on foot
- Level 2 · $3.00–$8.30 a dayTanzania 30% · World 39%a bicycle, a gas canister for the stove, a tap within walking distance
- Level 3 · $8.30–$33 a dayTanzania 5% · World 32%a motorbike, a gas stove, a bank account
- Level 4 · $33+ a dayTanzania <1% · World 15%a car, a fridge, hot water from the tap
About 65% of Tanzania lives on Level 1, under $3.00 a day per person; worldwide, roughly one in seven people do.
The line that moved
In Tanzania, 74% lived under the $3.00 line at the 1991 survey; 51% at the 2018 one — a fall of 22 points in 27 years.
Share of Tanzania 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.
Who earns what in Tanzania
8 portraits, not payroll data: each stands roughly where that kind of work typically earns on the curve of Tanzania.
| the lowest 10% | the earnings of a smallholder farmer near the lakes |
|---|---|
| 10–25% | the earnings of a street vendor in Dar es Salaam — mchicha and mangoes, weighed by eye, never wrongly |
| 25–45% | the earnings of a dala dala conductor |
| 45–65% | the earnings of a hotel worker in Zanzibar — high season means every season now |
| 65–82% | the earnings of a schoolteacher |
| 82–93% | the earnings of a port crane operator in Dar es Salaam — what he lifts feeds six landlocked countries |
| 93–98% | the earnings of a doctor in Dar |
| the highest 2% | the earnings of a logistics-firm owner — the port feeds six countries |
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Where this comes from
The World Bank's Poverty and Inequality Platform percentile distribution for Tanzania (survey year 2018), 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 Tanzania's — and a few far from it, for scale.