New country classifications by income level: 2018-2019

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Updated country income classifications for the World Bank’s 2019 fiscal year are available here.

The World Bank assigns the world's economies into four income groups — high, upper-middle, lower-middle, and low. We base this assignment on GNI per capita calculated using the Atlas method. The units for this measure and for the thresholds is current US Dollars.

At the Bank, these classifications are used to aggregate data for groups of similar countries. The income-category of a country is not one of the factors used that influence lending decisions.

Each year on July 1st, we update the classifications. They change for two reasons:

1. In each country, factors such as income growth, inflation, exchange rates, and population change, influence GNI per capita.

2. To keep the dollar thresholds which separate the classifications fixed in real terms, we adjust them for inflation.

The data for the first adjustment come from estimates of 2017 GNI per capita which are now available. This year, the thresholds have moved down slightly because of low price inflation and the strengthening of the US dollar. Click here for information about how the World Bank classifies countries.

Updated Thresholds

New thresholds are determined at the start of the Bank’s fiscal year in July and remain fixed for 12 months regardless of subsequent revisions to estimates. As of July 1 2018, the new thresholds for classification by income are:

Threshold GNI/Capita (current US$)
Low-income
Lower-middle income 996 - 3,895
Upper-middle income 3,896 - 12,055
High-income > 12,055

Changes in Classification

The following countries have new income groups:

Country Old group New group
Argentina Upper-middle High-income
Armenia Lower-middle Upper-middle
Croatia Upper-middle High-income
Guatemala Lower-middle Upper-middle
Jordan Lower-middle Upper-middle
Panama Upper-middle High-income
Syrian Arab Rep. Lower-middle Low-income
Tajikistan Lower-middle Low-income
Yemen Rep. Lower-middle Low-income

The country and lending groups page provides a complete list of economies classified by income, region, and lending status and links to previous years’ classifications. The classification tables include all World Bank members, plus all other economies with populations of more than 30,000. The term country, used interchangeably with economy, does not imply political independence but refers to any territory for which authorities report separate social or economic statistics.

Tables showing 2017 GNI, GNI per capita, GDP, GDP PPP, and Population data are also available as part of the World Bank's Open Data Catalog. Note that these are preliminary estimates and may be revised. For more information, please contact us at data@worldbank.org.

Sonam Jain
July 02, 2018

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Seydou BOUDA
July 06, 2018

Good update on countries classification

James Mbakpuo
July 06, 2018

Thanks for the information and updates.Great work and well researched I will only say keep the light shining.

Chandran Sankaranarayanan
July 07, 2018

Very useful. A ready reference.

Mr William Dare
July 07, 2018

This is wonderful. This information is quite impressive. I want more details on the assistant of world bank group to my country, Nigeria.

David Cieslikowski
July 07, 2018

The second paragraph states that “...the income-category is not one of the factors used to influence lending decisions.” I believe that you may have meant to say that “the income category is one of the factors...”

Khem Raj Sedhai
July 07, 2018

It’s great to hear that some countries improved their economic conditions significantly.
Thanks to the World Bank.
My understanding and experiences say that we can achieve more with more focus on Education.
Khem Sedhai
Maxwell School, Syracuse University

Amsalu Ayana Aga
July 08, 2018

I like receiving the World Bank Group publications

S.M.Ovais
July 09, 2018

I am interested in the data pertaining rural economies of the countries of African and Asian regions

Monoj Kumar Roy
September 17, 2018

Data and information very useful for the policy makers.

SAM DANIEL
October 10, 2018

thanks for updating us. its really important for upcoming economists like me

saad bouraoui
November 27, 2018

your data about countries are very useful for my academic research ,thanks

phoebemwendia
January 24, 2019

Thanks for this forum for am sure it will help many of us out there with data to do projects

Andrzej
February 12, 2019

What about romania? It has a gdp per capita of almost 14.000$

MR MIRACLE
March 16, 2019

I like this information

Axel Dagà
March 20, 2019

I am working on my final thesis about the socioeconomic impact of luxury tourism in developing countries, and I'm looking for some classifications of developing countries.
Should I consider these countries if their GNI per capita is under 12,005 $? Why
Thank you in advance!
Axel Dagà, University of Girona.

Temmy
March 30, 2019

this proved useful a whole lot but i actually need the datas for the high income countries. thanks

hyunjoo kim
September 10, 2019

I'd love to get those data with the form of excel file and also your categorization could be divided by frontier, emerging and developed also? if yes, how? pls let me know the criteria.

thank you

Gere Msiba
July 09, 2020

Nice update