What are the World Bank income groups?

Four: low income, lower-middle income, upper-middle income and high income. Each economy is placed in one based on its gross national income (GNI) per capita, converted to US dollars with the World Bank Atlas method and updated every July.

What is the difference between GNI and GDP?

GDP measures output produced inside a country. GNI (gross national income) measures income earned by a country's residents, including income from abroad and minus income paid abroad. The World Bank uses GNI per capita for its income classification.

Does income group mean the same as developed or developing?

Not exactly. 'High income' is often used as shorthand for 'developed', but the World Bank classification is purely about average income per person. It ignores inequality, life expectancy and other development measures, so treat it as one lens, not a full picture.

How the World Bank classifies countries by income

Every country page on this site shows an income group — “High income”, “Upper middle income” and so on. Here’s exactly what those labels mean.

Source: World Bank Open Data (CC BY 4.0). Income classification methodology from the World Bank. Retrieved June 2026.

The four groups

The World Bank sorts every economy into one of four bands by gross national income (GNI) per capita, in US dollars:

Group	Rough meaning
Low income	The poorest economies by average income
Lower-middle income	Developing economies, income rising
Upper-middle income	Middle-income, often fast-growing (e.g. China)
High income	Wealthy economies (US, Western Europe, Gulf states)

The exact dollar thresholds are revised every July and creep up over time. An economy can move up or down a band as its income and the thresholds change.

GNI, not GDP

The classification uses GNI, not GDP. GNI counts income earned by a country’s residents (including from abroad), whereas GDP counts output produced within its borders. For most countries the two are close; they diverge where a lot of income flows in or out — another reason to read GDP figures carefully.

Why the labels matter

They determine eligibility for the World Bank’s concessional (low-interest) lending.
They’re a quick shorthand for an economy’s stage of development.
Researchers and journalists use them to group countries.

You can browse every country by band on the countries index (scroll to “By income group”), or see how income tends to track other indicators on the richest-per-capita ranking.

What they don’t tell you

Income group is an average. It says nothing about inequality, life expectancy, or how wealth is shared. A country can be “upper-middle income” with world-class cities and deep poverty side by side. Always read it alongside the other indicators on a country profile.

Bottom line

Four bands, set by GNI per capita, updated each July: a useful, blunt label for where an economy sits. Compare any two countries’ income groups and underlying numbers on our comparison pages.