Top 100 Countries by Poverty Rate (%), 2025

Regional patterns (grouped blocks)

Regional differences are shown as descriptive summaries, not as a separate ranking. The cards use the same country-level observations as the table and group them by region. Medians reduce the influence of very high or very low outliers compared with averages.

Why poverty rates differ across countries

Poverty rates vary for structural reasons such as productivity, demographics and geography, as well as short-run shocks such as inflation, job losses and conflict. The headline poverty rate is a starting point, not a full diagnosis:

• Inflation and food prices: When food inflation spikes, poverty can rise quickly because poor households spend a larger share of their budget on essentials. If a survey year coincides with a price shock, the poverty rate may look worse than in calmer periods.
• Jobs and earnings: Formal employment and stable self-employment reduce poverty through predictable cash flow. In countries where most workers are informal, shocks translate faster into poverty.
• Social transfers: Cash transfers, pensions, and targeted subsidies can reduce poverty headcounts, but only if coverage, targeting, and payment reliability are strong.
• Rural productivity: In many low-income settings, agriculture drives the bottom of the distribution. Drought, conflict, and input price shocks can push large groups under the poverty line.
• Fragility and conflict: Displacement, disrupted markets, and weakened institutions make poverty persistent and harder to measure regularly.

How to use this ranking correctly

A single poverty headcount number needs context:

• Compare like with like: use region and income group as the first filter; global comparisons are meaningful, but the policy levers differ widely.
• Check the survey year: this edition mixes survey years from very old observations to recent surveys. A country with older data may have changed materially since the last survey, so the year column should be read before comparing ranks.
• Use national poverty lines for domestic policy: national lines (World Bank indicator SI.POV.NAHC) reflect local living costs and policy debates, but they should not be used for a strict country-to-country ranking.
• Look beyond headcount: poverty gaps, inequality (Gini), higher international poverty lines and multidimensional poverty provide a fuller picture of deprivation severity and constraints.

International line, national line, and multidimensional poverty

The World Bank international poverty line is built for comparability. National poverty lines are built for domestic relevance. Both matter — but for different questions.

• International line (this ranking): best for cross-country comparisons and broad regional patterns.
• National poverty line: best for domestic policy targets, social protection design, and accountability to local standards of living.
• UNDP Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI): complements money-metric poverty by measuring overlapping deprivations in health, education, and living standards. In countries where income is volatile or informal, MPI can add stability and detail.

For middle-income economies, the $3.00/day line can understate the living-standard pressures captured by national poverty lines or higher international lines. Use it for comparability, then add local poverty thresholds and multidimensional indicators for domestic interpretation.

Methodology & sources

Indicator: World Bank / Poverty & Inequality Platform (PIP), poverty headcount ratio below the international poverty line (World Development Indicators code: SI.POV.DDAY). Values are expressed as % of population. Data accessed April 27, 2026.

Ranking logic: For each country, the table uses the latest non-empty year available in the World Bank indicator archive. Countries are sorted from the highest poverty rate to the lowest, which is why the “Latest year” differs across rows.

Edition label (2025): “2025” refers to the publication cycle and data access date, not a claim that every country has a synchronized 2025 survey.