How We Calculate Purchasing Power Parity
TL;DR: Every figure on this site comes directly from the World Bank's public PPP conversion factor indicator (private consumption), fetched programmatically with no proprietary adjustments. Our dataset covers 184 countries and was last refreshed on July 13, 2026.
The exact data source
We use the World Bank's PPP conversion factor, private consumption (PA.NUS.PRVT.PP) indicator, sourced from the World Bank's International Comparison Program. This is the same indicator used across economics and policy research to compare household purchasing power between countries, not a proprietary or estimated figure of our own.
How the World Bank collects this data
The International Comparison Program periodically surveys prices for a representative basket of goods and services across participating countries, then derives a conversion factor for each currency: how many units of that currency are needed to buy the same basket that one international dollar buys in the United States. Not every country reports every year, which is why the "as of" year varies by country in our dataset.
Exactly how this site fetches and refreshes it
Our fetch process (website/scripts/fetch-ppp-data.mjs) calls the World Bank API directly, filters out regional aggregates (like "World" or "European Union") to keep only real countries, and for each country keeps the most recent year with a reported value. Currency codes are matched from a static ISO reference table, since currency-to-country pairing is reference data that doesn't need a live API call. This dataset currently covers 184 countries and was last refreshed on July 13, 2026.
What this data doesn't capture
PPP conversion factors are national averages, not city-level figures, and they can lag real-time inflation between World Bank reporting updates. See our full explanation of Purchasing Power Parity for the complete list of what PPP does and doesn't measure.
Frequently asked questions
What exact World Bank indicator does this site use?
PA.NUS.PRVT.PP, the PPP conversion factor for private consumption, expressed as national currency units per international dollar. This is the same indicator used to compare household purchasing power across countries in most economic research.
How often is the data refreshed?
This site's dataset was last refreshed on July 13, 2026, pulling each country's most recently reported year (currently 2021-2024 depending on the country) directly from the World Bank API.
Can I verify this data myself?
Yes. The same figures are published on the World Bank Open Data indicator page, linked below, and our fetch script is a straightforward call to their public API with no proprietary adjustments.