Turkmenistan: cost of living
3 answers, 3 from Turkmenistan's own official bodies, with a link to each figure.
How many people in Turkmenistan live on less than half the median income?
5.7% of people in Turkmenistan lived below 50% of the median income in 2025, according to the TurkmenStat SDG platform (indicator 10.2.1). The share was 5.8% in 2024, 6.0% in 2023, 6.4% in 2022 and 6.7% in 2021.
This is a relative measure: it counts people whose income is far below the middle of the national distribution, not people below a fixed cost-of-living line. It falls when low incomes catch up with the median. The platform publishes no national figures for indicators 1.1.1 and 1.2.1 on poverty lines, and the World Bank's latest international poverty estimate for Turkmenistan dates from 1998.
What do households in Turkmenistan live on?
Of 6,968,106 people living in private households at the 2022 census, 2,282,315 (32.8%) lived mainly on income from employment, according to the State Committee of Turkmenistan on Statistics. 2,767,424 (39.7%) were dependents of other household members.
Retirement pensions were the main source for 435,790 people (6.3%), government allowances for 431,908 (6.2%) and disability allowances for 167,453 (2.4%). 264,736 (3.8%) lived mainly by selling produce from a personal farm plot, and 142,256 on what such plots produced for their own use. The census asked for each person's main source only, on 17 December 2022.
How many households in Turkmenistan face large health bills?
2.1% of Turkmenistan's population lived in households with large spending on health in 2025, according to the TurkmenStat SDG platform (indicator 3.8.2). The share was 2.2% in 2024, 2.3% in 2023 and 2.2% in 2022.
The indicator counts people in households whose health spending is a large share of total spending or income. The World Health Organization estimates that out-of-pocket payments made up 77.4% of current health spending in Turkmenistan in 2023, so most health costs are paid directly by households even though few cross the large-spending threshold.
Official bodies in Turkmenistan
- National Committee of Statistics of Turkmenistan
- Central Bank of Turkmenistan
- Turkmenistan SDG national reporting platformRun by the State Committee on Statistics, it publishes annual national data for the Sustainable Development Goal indicators, most series to 2025.
- World Health Organization (WHO)Publishes health statistics for Turkmenistan, including life expectancy, mortality and health spending.
More about Turkmenistan
- Economy
- Jobs and pay
- Public finances
- Health and care
- Housing
- Crime and justice
- Immigration
- Education
- Environment
Read on 14 October 2026. Definitions · Report an error