Mobile Data Affordability by Country 2026
A cheap sticker price isn’t the same as affordable data. By dividing the price of 1GB by average monthly income, the picture flips: a high-income country can shrug off a high price, while in the poorest economies even “cheap” data eats a real share of a month’s earnings. We benchmark every country against the UN “1 for 2” target — 1GB for 2% of monthly income or less.
Most affordable countries for mobile data
Where 1GB costs the smallest share of a month’s income. High-income Europe, the Gulf and Australia dominate — and Israel’s near-free data is effectively a rounding error against its income.
| Country | 1GB price | Monthly income | 1GB as % of income |
|---|---|---|---|
| Israel | $0.02 | $4,409/mo | <0.01% |
| San Marino | $0.10 | $4,491/mo | <0.01% |
| Italy | $0.09 | $3,216/mo | <0.01% |
| France | $0.20 | $3,763/mo | <0.01% |
| Australia | $0.44 | $5,223/mo | <0.01% |
| United Kingdom | $0.62 | $4,123/mo | 0.02% |
| Kuwait | $0.52 | $3,398/mo | 0.02% |
| Fiji | $0.09 | $485/mo | 0.02% |
| Spain | $0.53 | $2,796/mo | 0.02% |
| Russia | $0.25 | $1,277/mo | 0.02% |
Least affordable countries for mobile data
Where 1GB takes the biggest bite of monthly income. Zimbabwe is the dramatic outlier at roughly 22% — more than ten times the UN target — while several low-income countries with “cheap” headline prices (Nigeria, Pakistan, Bangladesh) still rank as less affordable than the rich world.
| Country | 1GB price | Monthly income | 1GB as % of income |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zimbabwe | $43.75 | $200/mo | 21.9% |
| Nigeria | $0.32 | $142/mo | 0.23% |
| South Korea | $5.01 | $3,063/mo | 0.16% |
| Canada | $5.37 | $4,450/mo | 0.12% |
| UAE | $4.61 | $4,296/mo | 0.11% |
| Japan | $3.21 | $3,000/mo | 0.11% |
| Pakistan | $0.12 | $119/mo | 0.10% |
| Bangladesh | $0.23 | $235/mo | 0.10% |
| Kyrgyzstan | $0.17 | $183/mo | 0.09% |
| Switzerland | $7.29 | $7,935/mo | 0.09% |
The “1 for 2” affordability target
In 2018 the UN Broadband Commission adopted A4AI’s “1 for 2” target: entry-level 1GB mobile broadband should cost no more than 2% of average monthly income in low- and middle-income countries. By ITU’s 2023 data, 114 of 188 economies met the data-only mobile target, and the global median fell to 1.3% of income — but in Sub-Saharan Africa 1GB still averages around 5.8% of monthly income, nearly three times the target.
Methodology & notes
Affordability is computed as: 1GB price ÷ (GNI per capita ÷ 12) × 100. Prices are the per-country average from Cable.co.uk’s Worldwide Mobile Data Pricing study; income is World Bank GNI per capita (Atlas method, current US$, 2024 — San Marino 2023). This mirrors the metric used by the UN Broadband Commission and A4AI, which use GNI per capita as the income proxy.
GNI per capita is a national average and hides large within-country inequality, so real affordability for low-income households is worse than these figures suggest. We exclude South Sudan and Yemen, which lack recent World Bank GNI data. This sample is travel-destination-weighted and therefore more affordable than the full global set ITU reports.
Free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 with a link to this page.
Sources
Pay the local rate, wherever you go
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