The question

A Reddit user raised an interesting point about the UAE's GDP per capita:

"Your title description here says per person but the UAE calculation is based on per citizen of UAE and not per actual number of persons in the UAE. This is important because they have a humongous amount of what is basically slave labor propping up their GDP that is unaccounted for that makes it seem like the GDP per person is much higher."

u/pegasusCK — r/dataisbeautiful

It turns out the opposite is true: the IMF divides GDP by total residents, not citizens. With a GDP of ~$537B and a population of ~10.5M, the UAE's GDP per capita is $51,348. But only ~13% of UAE residents are Emirati citizens. If you divided that same GDP among citizens only, you'd get $398,046 — nearly eight times higher.

That raised an interesting question: what would GDP per citizen look like for every country? For nations with large non-citizen populations — migrant workers, expats, refugees — GDP per capita may understate the economic reality for their citizens. We ran the numbers.

The gap

The chart below shows the 14 countries where the gap exceeds 1.3x — meaning GDP per citizen is at least 30% higher than GDP per capita. GDP figures are 2025 IMF projections; citizen percentages from Eurostat, GLMM, and national census data.

GDP per capita (all residents) GDP per citizen

Two groups

These 14 countries fall into two groups, plus Australia:

Oil-rich (Gulf) states (UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Brunei). Massive oil and gas revenues shared among a small citizen population, while millions of foreign workers — who generate and sustain the economy — have virtually no path to citizenship. The UAE and Qatar have the most extreme gaps: citizens represent just 11-13% of the population. Brunei follows the same pattern from Southeast Asia.

Tax havens and financial centers (Luxembourg, Singapore, Liechtenstein, Malta, Switzerland, Cyprus). These attract a disproportionate amount of foreign capital and workers relative to their size. Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Singapore all have large cross-border commuter populations (200K+, 400K+, and 300K+ respectively) who contribute to GDP but aren't counted as residents — inflating GDP per capita even before the citizen adjustment. Cyprus and Malta attract foreign residents through favorable tax regimes.

Australia (1.34x) is a high-immigration nation where ~25% of residents were non-citizens in 1996. Note: Australia's citizen percentage is based on 1996 census data — the most recent available in the UN Demographic Yearbook.

Full table

102 countries with sourced data. Click any column header to sort.

Country ▴▾ GDP per capita ▴▾ Citizens % ▴▾ GDP per citizen ▼ Gap ▴▾

Methodology

gdp_per_citizen = gdp_per_capita × (total_population / resident_citizens)

In other words, the same GDP divided by fewer people.

Citizen percentages come from three sources, in order of priority:

  • Eurostat (migr_pop1ctz, 1 Jan 2025) — 31 European countries. Population by citizenship (nationals vs non-nationals).
  • GLMM (Gulf Labour Markets and Migration, mid-2022) — 6 GCC countries. Official national/non-national breakdowns from government statistics.
  • UN Demographic Yearbook (data.un.org, table 127) — foreign population (non-citizens) from national censuses. Census years vary (1996-2023).
  • National sources — US Census ACS (2023), StatCan (2021), SingStat (2024), Israel CBS (2024).

GDP per capita is from IMF World Economic Outlook (October 2025), 2025 projections.

Missing countries. Aruba is excluded (as a Dutch territory, residents hold Dutch nationality, making the UN non-citizen count misleading). Australia's citizen percentage is based on 1996 census data — the only year available. Countries not reporting to any of the sources above are not included.

Open data

The full dataset (102 countries) is available as JSON:

View on GitHub · Download JSON

Preview JSON structure 
{
  "sources": {
    "imf": { "name": "IMF World Economic Outlook, October 2025", "url": "..." },
    "eurostat": { "name": "Eurostat migr_pop1ctz", "url": "..." },
    "glmm": { "name": "Gulf Labour Markets and Migration", "url": "..." },
    "un": { "name": "UN Demographic Yearbook, table 127", "url": "..." },
    ...
  },
  "countries": [
    {
      "code": "QAT",
      "name": "Qatar",
      "gdp_per_capita": {
        "value": 71441,
        "source": "imf",
        "year": 2025
      },
      "total_population": {
        "value": 3109000,
        "source": "imf",
        "year": 2025
      },
      "resident_citizens": {
        "value": 376189,
        "source": "glmm",
        "year": 2022
      },
      "gdp_per_citizen": 590425,
      "multiplier": 8.26
    },
    ...
  ]
}

Caveats

This is a thought experiment, not a real economic indicator. GDP per citizen is not a standard measure used by any statistical agency.

Non-citizens contribute to GDP. Migrant workers, expats, and foreign residents generate economic output. Dividing their contribution among citizens only creates an inflated number that nobody actually "receives."

"Citizen" means different things. In Gulf states, citizenship is rarely granted to foreign-born residents. In countries like the US or France, large portions of immigrants eventually naturalize. The gap reflects immigration policy as much as economics.

This uses resident citizens, not total citizens. We divide GDP by citizens living in the country, not all citizens worldwide. For Gulf states, this barely matters — Emiratis and Qataris rarely emigrate. But for countries with large diasporas (Lebanon, Armenia, Bosnia, Jamaica), dividing by all citizens — including millions abroad — would push GDP per citizen below GDP per capita. That's a different and equally revealing calculation, which we plan to explore separately.

Census years vary. Eurostat data is from 2025, GLMM from 2022, but some UN Demographic Yearbook entries date back to the 2000s. Citizen/non-citizen ratios shift slowly for most countries, but this is an approximation, not a precise snapshot.

Sources

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