Gini coefficient in Russia: income inequality, decile ratio and regions

2026-09-27 · Living standards

The Gini coefficient in Russia in 2025 was 0.422. The fund ratio, often called the decile ratio, rose to 16 times: the top 10% of the wealthiest residents receive on average 16 times more money than the bottom 10% of the least affluent. The Gini returned to its 2007 peak, and it has not risen once in the thirty years of observation. These are Rosstat data on monetary incomes of the population.

Below we examine how both indicators are constructed and how the decile ratio in the strict sense differs from them, how many rubles each of the ten population groups receives, and in which regions stratification is strongest. All rows can be opened in interactive charts.

What the Gini coefficient means in plain words

The Gini coefficient answers the question of how unevenly incomes are distributed among people. It ranges from zero to one. Zero means everyone receives the same amount. One means all the country's money is held by one person, and the rest receive nothing.

Take ten neighbours. If each earns 50 thousand, the coefficient is zero. If one has a million and the nine others have 10 thousand each, it jumps noticeably, even though the average income in the courtyard has increased. Therefore the Gini is calculated separately from average incomes: the average can rise while the majority does not become richer.

Rosstat builds the indicator based on the distribution of monetary incomes, which it gathers from sample household surveys and the macroeconomic indicator of per capita income.

Gini coefficient in Russia by year

Over thirty years the coefficient stayed in a narrow corridor, between 0.387 and 0.422. But within the corridor three different periods are visible.

In the 2000s inequality grew almost every year and in 2007 reached 0.422. It stayed at this level for four years, then slowly fell and in 2022 dropped to 0.398, the lowest level since 2002. After that it rose for three consecutive years: 0.405, 0.410 and again 0.422, as at the 2007 peak.

The series from 1995 for Russia and all regions is in the Rosstat dataset with the Gini coefficient, and a short summary with a table by year is on the page "Gini coefficient by year".

Funds ratio: how many times the rich get more

The funds ratio is more visual than the Gini. The population is divided into ten equal income groups and the average income of the top group is compared with the average income of the bottom group.

In 2025 the gap was 16 times. The maximum of the series was in 2007, 16.7 times, and stayed around 16.6 until 2010. The smallest gap was in 1996, 13.3 times. In 2022 it fell to 14.0, and over the next three years it rose by two points: 14.8, 15.5 and 16.0.

Annual shares show the same thing in percentages. In 2025 the poorest 10% of the population received 1.9% of all monetary incomes of the country, the richest 10% received 31.0%. The lower half of the population, five groups together, got 21.6%. The top 10% receive more than the entire lower half of the country. A year earlier the share of the top group was 30.3%. If the population is divided into five parts, the top fifth in 2025 had 47.8% of incomes, the bottom fifth 5.2%.

See the dynamics: summary "Funds ratio by year" and income shares of ten groups by region since 2011.

Decile ratio: how it differs from the funds ratio

The confusion here is in the names. In queries "decile ratio" usually refers to the funds ratio. Rosstat’s decile ratio is a separate indicator and is calculated differently.

The funds ratio compares the average incomes of the extreme groups. The decile ratio takes the boundaries: the smallest income among the top 10% is divided by the largest income among the bottom 10%. In other words, it shows how many times the entry threshold into the rich is higher than the ceiling of the poor. The extremes (very poor and very rich) are not included, so it is always lower than the funds ratio.

In 2025 the decile ratio in Russia was 7.5. This is the highest value in the series that Rosstat has published since 2013. The minimum, 6.6, occurred in 2022. In Moscow the figure was 8.7, in Ingushetia 4.8. All regions are in the dataset with decile ratio.

How ten population groups earn in rubles

Rosstat publishes a rapid estimate of incomes for ten groups in rubles, quarterly. The latest on the site is for Q1 2026.

The average income per person in the country was 69,113 rubles per month. For the poorest 10 % it was 14,312 rubles, for the fifth group, in the middle of the distribution, 47,213 rubles, for the richest 10 % 207,494 rubles. The national average exceeds the income of six of the ten groups: large sums at the top raise the average, and most do not reach it. The same logic applies to the average and median salary.

The gap widens in rubles as well. In Q1 2023 the poorest group earned 8,693 rubles per person, the richest 115,067 rubles, a difference of 13.2 times. In Q1 2026 it was already 14.5 times. Over the year, from Q1 2025 to Q1 2026, incomes of the lower group rose by 10.2 %, the upper by 11.1 %, the ninth by 11.8 %. The slowest growth was in the second and third groups: 9.3 % and 9.1 %. This is nominal growth, without price adjustment. How incomes change accounting for inflation is shown in the summary "Real incomes by year".

Rubles for all groups for 2023–2026 are available in the income dataset by decile groups.

Gini coefficient by regions of Russia

The most pronounced income stratification is observed in the oil‑gas North and in the two capitals. Regions with the highest Gini coefficient in 2025:

The most even income distribution is in Sevastopol (0.334 and 8.6 times), Ingushetia (0.336 and 8.7), Crimea (0.342 and 9.1) and Karachay‑Cherkessia (0.344 and 9.2). Tyumen Oblast together with Yamalo and Yugra gives 0.448, without the okrugs 0.410.

In 2025 the Gini coefficient rose in all 83 regions for which Rosstat provided data. After thirty years of observation this happened for the first time. Usually some regions go up while others go down: in 2023 growth was recorded in 81 regions, in 2015 only in one.

Moscow is a separate case. In 1997 its Gini coefficient was 0.623, and the richest 10% of Muscovites in 2003 earned 48.7 times more than the poorest. The gap then narrowed for almost twenty years and in 2020 reached 0.410 and 15.3 times, almost the same as for the country as a whole. Since then it has risen again: in 2025 it was 0.449 and 19.7 times.

All regions in order are collected in the regional ranking by Gini coefficient, Moscow dynamics on a separate page "Gini coefficient in Moscow".

Questions and Answers

What is the Gini coefficient in Russia in 2025?

0.422. This is the latest published figure from Rosstat and the maximum of the series since 1995, the same level was recorded in 2007.

What is the decile ratio in Russia?

It depends on which indicator is meant. The wealth ratio, i.e., the ratio of average incomes of the richest 10% and the poorest 10%, was 16 times in 2025. Rosstat's decile ratio, the ratio of the boundaries of these groups, was 7.5 times.

Why did inequality increase in 2025?

Incomes of the upper groups grew faster than those of the others. The share of the richest 10% of total incomes rose over the year from 30.3% to 31.0%, the share of the top fifth from 46.9% to 47.8%. The share of the bottom fifth fell over the same period from 5.3% to 5.2%.

Where is income inequality the greatest in Russia?

In the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug: Gini coefficient 0.470, the richest 10% earn 23 times more than the poorest. Followed by Chukotka, the Nenets Okrug and Moscow.

How does the Gini coefficient differ from the wealth ratio?

The wealth ratio compares only the two extreme groups and does not show what happens in the middle. The Gini coefficient takes the whole distribution into account, from the first group to the tenth.

In Short

• Gini coefficient in Russia in 2025 is 0.422, as at the peak of 2007.
• The richest 10% earn on average 16 times more than the poorest 10% and take 31.0% of all monetary incomes.
• Rosstat's decile ratio is 7.5, the maximum since the series began in 2013.
• In the first quarter of 2026, the income of the poorest group was 14,312 rubles per person per month, the richest 207,494 rubles.
• Inequality is strongest in Yamalo-Nenets, Chukotka, the Nenets Okrug and Moscow, weakest in Sevastopol and Ingushetia. In 2025 it increased for the first time in all regions simultaneously.

See also

• Regional ranking by Gini coefficient
• Median salary in Russia: what it is and how much
• Poverty level in Russia by year