Bhutan Poverty and Equity Brief : October 2026

Overview & Synopsis

Bhutan has made substantial progress in reducing poverty, but gains remain uneven across regions and welfare dimensions. Robust growth and rising remittances supported improvements in living standards over the past decade, contributing to the near eradication of extreme poverty. In 2022, 12.4 percent of the population lived below the national poverty line, while roughly 9 percent lived below the $8.3/day poverty line. The prosperity gap stood at 1.95, implying that average consumption would need to nearly double to reach the global prosperity benchmark of $28 a day (2021 PPP). Without remittances, an estimated 24,000 additional people would have been poor. Poverty was highly uneven, ranging from 1.5 percent in Thimphu to 41.4 percent in Zhemgang in 2022 (37.1 percent in 2025), with 87 percent of the poor residing in rural areas. These spatial disparities extend to education, health, and other human development outcomes across dzongkhags.