Nearly 47.42 per cent of households in Bangladesh are in debt, as rising living costs continue to outpace income, forcing families to borrow to meet essential expenses, according to a special survey by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS).
 
Rural households are the worst affected, with 51.91 per cent taking loans to cover essential expenses over the past year, compared with 40.19 per cent of urban households and 32.11 per cent of households in city corporation areas, the survey found.
 
The findings are based on the Living Standard Survey 2025, conducted by the BBS’s Poverty and Livelihood Statistics Cell. The survey was carried out from September 14 to 18 last year, covering 3,000 households in rural, urban and city corporation areas across 150 sample units. Data were collected using tablet devices and the Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) method.
 
The survey revealed a significant gap between household income and expenditure. Average monthly household income at the national level stood at Tk 33,513, while average monthly expenditure reached Tk 35,311.
 
Households in city corporation areas recorded the highest average monthly expenditure at Tk 46,778, followed by Tk 37,344 in urban areas and Tk 32,532 in rural areas.
 
Nationwide, food accounts for approximately half of monthly household expenditure, with the remainder spent on non-food items and services. Spending patterns, however, vary by location. Rural households devote a larger share of their budgets to food, while urban households spend more on non-food items and services. In city corporation areas, non-food expenditure accounts for 56.7 per cent of total monthly spending.
 
Zahid Hussain, former lead economist at the World Bank’s Dhaka office, said the survey findings reflected Bangladesh’s fragile macroeconomic situation since the Covid-19 pandemic.
 
The financial strain has persisted amid a prolonged period of inflation outpacing wage growth. According to official data, inflation remained higher than wage growth for 56 consecutive months through September.
 
The BBS Wage Rate Index showed that wage growth slowed to 7.9 per cent in September, down from 8.05 per cent in August. The index tracks monthly wages of low-income skilled and unskilled workers in 63 occupations across the agriculture, industry and services sectors.
 
The World Bank has also warned that prolonged economic weakness is undermining living standards. Its latest Bangladesh Development Update, released on October 6, identified weak labour demand and persistently high inflation as key factors behind the deterioration.
 
According to the report, the national poverty rate could rise from 18.7 per cent in 2022 to an estimated 22.5 per cent in 2026.
 
The BBS survey’s findings underline the growing financial pressure on households, particularly in rural areas, where more than half of families reported borrowing to meet essential expenses. With average monthly expenditure exceeding income nationally, rising living costs are leaving many households increasingly reliant on debt to make ends meet.