Romania remains among high-come countries in World Bank ranking for 2024

Romania remained among the world's high-income countries in 2024, a group it entered in 2019, according to a ranking by the World Bank.

Romania was officially labeled high-income in 2019, but was dragged down in the upper-middle-income group in 2020 due to the effects of the pandemic. The post-pandemic recovery, however, saw the country return to the high-earners group, and maintain itself there in 2024.

Romania is currently classified as a high-income country, with a gross national income, or GNI, per capita of USD 17,600 at the end of 2024, up from USD 16,690 in 2023. To be part of the high-income group, the country needed to have had a gross national income per capita of at least USD 13,935 last year.

Every EU member is in the high-income group, as defined by the World Bank, except Bulgaria.

Back in 2019, Romania reported a GNI per capita of USD 12,610, making it over the minimum threshold of USD 12,535. Later, in 2020, Romania was downgraded from the group of high-income countries in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the country’s economy shrank by 4%, but also due to the fact that the World Bank slightly raised the minimum threshold for gross national income per capita for this category, to USD 12,696.

It is worth noting that gross national income per capita decreased in all EU states for which data was available in 2020. Therefore, Romania's situation was not exceptional, as all countries were affected by the pandemic. Romania was the only one downgraded, solely because it was just slightly above the threshold.

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