Bangladesh Overtakes India in Per Capita Income, IMF Sees India Retaking Lead by FY29

Bangladesh has pulled back ahead of India on per capita income, according to the IMF's World Economic Outlook database released this week, and the fund now expects Bangladesh to hold that lead for two more fiscal years before India overtakes it again in FY29. The numbers matter less for bragging rights than for what they say about how two very differently sized economies are growing, and how quickly that comparison can flip on exchange rate moves alone.

• Bangladesh's per capita GDP is projected at $2,886 for FY26, against India's $2,750, a gap of $136 in Bangladesh's favour.
• The IMF expects Bangladesh to stay ahead through FY28, with India regaining the lead in FY29, at $3,662 against Bangladesh's $3,334.
• By FY31, the gap is projected to widen to roughly $709 in India's favour, at $4,389 against $3,680.
• On a purchasing-power-parity basis, where prices of local goods are factored in, India has led every year since 1994 and is expected to keep leading through 2031, with the gap widening to about 45 percent.

The current-dollar measure, the one that produced this week's headline, is a genuinely volatile metric for two countries whose economies move on very different clocks. Bangladesh led on this measure for seven straight years starting in 2018, lost it to India in 2025 as the taka weakened against the dollar, and has now reclaimed it in the newest data. An IMF update from April this year had actually projected India moving ahead again as early as 2027, with Bangladesh at $3,048 against India's $3,074, a gap of barely $26. The fact that the October data now pushes that crossover back two years, to FY29, shows how sensitive these rankings are to exchange rate assumptions and growth forecasts that get revised every few months.

Same ranking, very different economies

The headline comparison obscures a much larger gap in scale. India's economy is projected at $4.06 trillion in FY26, growing to $6.74 trillion by FY31, roughly eight times the size of Bangladesh's, which sits at $506.4 billion this year and is projected to reach $674.4 billion by FY31. India is also forecast to keep growing faster: 7.02 percent in FY27 and still 6.81 percent in FY31, which the IMF describes as the fastest pace in South Asia. Bangladesh's growth, by contrast, is the slowest in the region on these projections, dipping to 2.21 percent in FY28 before recovering to 2.97 percent by FY31.

Put simply, India's much larger population means its enormous economic output gets divided among roughly eight times as many people, which is why its per capita figure sits close to Bangladesh's despite the two economies being nowhere near comparable in total size. A country can lead on income per person while still growing more slowly in aggregate, and that is effectively what the IMF numbers describe for Bangladesh over the next few years.

The rest of South Asia, for context

Bangladesh and India are not close to the top of the regional table. The Maldives leads South Asia by a wide margin at $19,507 per capita in FY26, reflecting its small population and tourism-driven dollar earnings. Sri Lanka sits at $5,062 and Bhutan at $4,933, both still well above Bangladesh and India. Pakistan trails at $1,836 and Nepal is lowest in the region at $1,540. The comparison is a reminder that per capita GDP is a measure of average output per person, not a measure of living costs, income distribution or how evenly growth is shared within a country, and a higher ranking on this single metric does not automatically mean broader prosperity.

The IMF's own description of the metric, as summarised in its October data release, is that GDP per capita "divides total economic output by population," useful for comparing scale of output per head across countries but silent on how that output is actually distributed among people.

What it means for you

For Bangladeshi households, this ranking swap changes very little day to day. It is not a measure of your own income or purchasing power, and it says nothing about inflation, wages or the cost of rent and groceries, all of which matter far more to a family's budget than where the country sits relative to India on a single IMF table. What the broader data does suggest is that Bangladesh's growth is expected to slow over the next two years before picking back up, which is relevant if you are planning around job prospects, business investment or wage negotiations tied to the wider economy. If you are weighing long-term savings decisions against this kind of macro backdrop, comparing current rates across banks with the site's FDR rate comparison tool is a more directly useful exercise than tracking where Bangladesh ranks against India in any single year.

Fiscal year	Bangladesh ($)	India ($)	Leader
FY26	2,886	2,750	Bangladesh
FY29	3,334	3,662	India
FY31	3,680	4,389	India