The World Development Indicators (WDI) database has rolled out its July 2025 update, featuring a wide array of new data to help researchers, policymakers, and practitioners better understand global trends.
The World Bank country income classification for FY26 has been announced. The country and lending groups page also provides a complete list of economies classified by income, region, and lending status.
The July database update includes the 2024 data for national accounts and population, including GDP and GNI-related indicators.
A major headline from this update is the shift in poverty measurement to the 2021 Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) series. The World Bank has replaced the 2017 PPP-based poverty lines with new thresholds reflecting 2021 PPPs, increasing the accuracy and relevance of poverty statistics. For example, the extreme poverty line has been updated from $2.15 to $3.00 per day. This change ensures that poverty estimates better capture current economic realities, accounting for inflation and evolving consumption patterns.
The latest release also features new indicators from the Enterprise Surveys project, offering data on how firms around the world navigate issues such as access to credit, energy management, foreign ownership, and dispute resolution. These indicators shed light on business resilience and innovation. For instance, new data reveals the percentage of firms that file taxes electronically or monitor their carbon emissions—important markers for understanding private sector modernization and sustainability.
A noteworthy addition in this update is the inclusion of sex-disaggregated indicators on child malnutrition. New modeled estimates for overweight and stunting in children under five, by gender, allow for a deeper understanding of how boys and girls are differently affected by nutritional challenges. This data can inform targeted interventions, especially in regions where caregiving practices or social norms contribute to unequal health outcomes.
Other updated indicators include: population by age, sex, and area (urban, rural, and slums) as well as adolescent fertility rates and age dependency ratio; statistics on health and gender, including the prevalence of diabetes and anemia, as well as the time spent on unpaid domestic and caregiving tasks by sex (female and male); index-based trade indicators, covering trade in goods and services through volume indices (import and export) and commercial service imports and exports; stock market data, capturing the scale and activity of domestic equity markets, including market capitalization, number of listed companies, trading volume, and turnover ratios.
This July update also incorporates methodological refinements—such as the adoption of a consistent exponential growth method for population aggregates.
As always, the data is accessible through multiple platforms, including the WDI website, DataBank, and the Open Data portal. A complete list of updates is available in the full WDI release note for July 2025.
Join the Conversation