Dataset · FAO
Cost of a Healthy Diet
9 years, 2017–2025 · 159 countries
This is what the cheapest healthy diet available in a country costs per person per day, in dollars adjusted for differences in prices between countries. FAO and the World Bank price it from national retail prices and each country's own dietary guidelines, and publish it every year in The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World.
This site holds every year from 2017 to 2025, read from FAO’s own data and stored exactly as published.
Cost of a Healthy Diet · the file
- Newest
- Cost of a Healthy Diet, 2025
- Held
- 9 years · 1,438 rows
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
019 years
Every year
Every year comes from FAO’s 2026 release, recalculated on one method. Each opens the full table for that year; each downloads as a CSV.
| Year | Countries | Change | Read | Download |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cost of a Healthy Diet, 2025Newest | 159 | ±0 | September 29, 2026 | CSV |
| Cost of a Healthy Diet, 2024 | 159 | −1 | September 29, 2026 | CSV |
| Cost of a Healthy Diet, 2023 | 160 | ±0 | September 29, 2026 | CSV |
| Cost of a Healthy Diet, 2022 | 160 | ±0 | September 29, 2026 | CSV |
| Cost of a Healthy Diet, 2021 | 160 | ±0 | September 29, 2026 | CSV |
| Cost of a Healthy Diet, 2020 | 160 | ±0 | September 29, 2026 | CSV |
| Cost of a Healthy Diet, 2019 | 160 | ±0 | September 29, 2026 | CSV |
| Cost of a Healthy Diet, 2018 | 160 | ±0 | September 29, 2026 | CSV |
| Cost of a Healthy Diet, 2017 | 160 | — | September 29, 2026 | CSV |
Every year in one file, one row per country per year: healthy-diet-cost-all-editions-nations-inquiry.csv
023 columns
What’s in the file
Every column, what it holds, how it is stored and what its values look like — what a reader needs before opening the file.
| Column | What it holds | Stored as | Range, 2025 | Distinct | Empty | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ISO Codecountry_codeIdentifier | The ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 code, added by this site. Every table here joins on it. | Text · 3 letters | — | 159 | 0 | |
CountrycountryName | The country’s name, as this file spells it. | Text | — | 159 | 0 | |
Cost of a healthy diet (PPP dollars per person per day)healthy_diet_costHeadline | The headline figure: Cost of the cheapest locally available healthy diet, PPP dollars per person per day. | Number · up to 2 decimals | 2.66 DR Congo8.27 Japanmiddle 4.55 | 128 | 0 |
Profiled from the newest file. Range: the lowest and highest value, with the country holding it when only one does. Spread: countries in ten equal steps from lowest to highest. Neither end is better. The values describe a shape, not a score.
03160 countries across every year
Who is covered
How many countries each year holds, continent by continent, who joined and who left, and which places this site covers that the dataset never has.
| 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Africa | 49 | 49 | 49 | 49 | 49 | 49 | 49 | 49 | 49 |
| Americas | 30 | 30 | 30 | 30 | 30 | 30 | 30 | 29 | 29 |
| Asia | 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 |
| Europe | 38 | 38 | 38 | 38 | 38 | 38 | 38 | 38 | 38 |
| Oceania | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| All | 160 | 160 | 160 | 160 | 160 | 160 | 160 | 159 | 159 |
Who joined and who left
- 2024
− Nicaragua
Not in this dataset · 65 places this site covers
FAO gives no figure for these in any year held here. It is the publisher’s choice of scope, and each place’s profile shows what is measured.
Afghanistan
American Samoa
Andorra
Anguilla
Argentina
Aruba
Barbados
Bermuda
British Virgin Islands
Cayman IslandsChannel Islands
Cook Islands
Cuba
Curaçao
El Salvador
Eritrea
Faroe Islands
French Polynesia
Georgia
Gibraltar
Greenland
Guam
Isle of Man
Kiribati
Kosovo
Libya
Liechtenstein
Macau
Marshall Islands
Micronesia
Monaco
Montserrat
Myanmar
Nauru
New Caledonia
Niue
North KoreaNorthern Cyprus
Northern Mariana Islands
Palau
Palestine
Papua New Guinea
Puerto Rico
Saint Martin
Samoa
San Marino
Sint Maarten
Solomon Islands
SomaliaSomaliland
Sudan
Tajikistan
Thailand
Timor-Leste
Tonga
Turkmenistan
Turks and Caicos Islands
Tuvalu
Ukraine
United States Virgin Islands
Vanuatu
Vatican City
Venezuela
Yemen
Zimbabwe04Provenance
Where it comes from
The path from the publisher to this page, and what was checked and changed on the way.
1 · Publisher
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
2 · Their file
Cost of a Healthy Diet 2025
3 · Read by this site
September 29, 2026
Imported by a script that parses each figure and writes it down unrounded.4 · Stored as
9 files, one per year
Each downloads as a CSV, or every year together as healthy-diet-cost-all-editions-nations-inquiry.csv5 · Used on
Its statistic page, and every profile it measures
Precision
The headline is stored to 2 decimals, as published.
Rounded by this site
Never. Tables on screen may show fewer decimals; the files never do.
Changed by this site
Reshaped into one row per country: regional and income-group totals are left out, only the columns listed are kept, each row gets its ISO 3166 code, and some country names are brought to one spelling. No value is recalculated, rescaled or rounded.
FAOSTAT's Cost and Affordability of a Healthy Diet domain, read from FAO's own bulk download. The World Bank publishes the same estimates and agrees to the cent for almost every country.
05Reuse
Licence and credit
What the publisher’s licence lets you do, what it asks of you, and a credit line and citation ready to copy.
Licence · checked September 29, 2026
- Share and redistribute it
- Adapt it and build on it
- Use it commercially
- Credit the publisher
- Say what you changed
Share, adapt and use commercially. Credit the publisher and say if you changed anything.
A credit line
Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Cost of a Healthy Diet, via Nations Inquiry.
Cite this dataset
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Cost of a Healthy Diet, 2017–2025 [data set]. As held by Nations Inquiry, https://nationsinquiry.com/datasets/healthy-diet-cost
The publisher’s own citation: FAO. 2026. FAOSTAT: Cost and Affordability of a Healthy Diet (CoAHD). Accessed on 29 September 2026. https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/CAHD Licence: CC-BY-4.0.
Plain-language summary, not legal advice. The licence text is what binds.
06Where it is used
Around the site
Where these numbers appear on this site, and the datasets nearest to it.
Charted
Cost of a Healthy Diet by countryWho is highest, the map, the spread, who rose and fell, and the records.
Subjects
Near neighbours
- Gini IndexWorld Bank Group · 22 held · 2002–2023
- Poverty Gap at $3.00 a DayWorld Bank Group · 22 held · 2002–2023
- Share of Population Unable to Afford a Healthy DietFAO · 9 held · 2017–2025
07Questions
Cost of a Healthy Diet: questions and answers
What is the Cost of a Healthy Diet?
This is what the cheapest healthy diet available in a country costs per person per day, in dollars adjusted for differences in prices between countries. FAO and the World Bank price it from national retail prices and each country's own dietary guidelines, and publish it every year in The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World.
Which years of the Cost of a Healthy Diet can I download?
All 9, from 2017 to 2025, each as a CSV file, or every year together in one CSV.
Does FAO rank countries on it?
No, and this site does not order it either. The files hold values only.
Can I use it commercially?
Yes, under CC BY 4.0, with credit to FAO. The licence text is linked on this page.