Low-Income Food-Deficit Countries (LIFDCs) - List updated February 2026
This page lists the Low-Income Food-Deficit Countries (LIFDCs).
The list of LIFDCs comprises 39 countries, five countries less than the previous list. Four countries – Sao Tome and Principe, Nicaragua, Uzbekistan, and Zimbabwe – graduated from the group based on the income criterion, while the United Republic of Tanzania graduated based on the net food trade position criterion.
Americas
Links
Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States:
Landlocked Developing Countries
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD):
Least developed countries
World Bank:
Low-income economies
World Trade Organization (WTO):
Least developed countries
Classification:
The classification of a country as low-income food-deficit for analytical purposes by FAO is determined based on three criteria:
1) First, a country must have a per capita Gross National Income (GNI) below the “historical” threshold used by the World Bank to determine eligibility for assistance by the International Development Association (IDA) and for the 20-year IBRD lending terms, applied to countries classified under World Bank categories I and II. The newly updated LIFDC list is based on the GNI estimates for 2024 (calculated by the World Bank Group using the Atlas method) and the historical threshold of USD 2 155.2) The second criterion concerns the net food trade position (gross exports minus grossimports) averaged over the last three years for which statistics are available (in this case 2022, 2023, and 2024). Trade volumes for a broad basket of basic food commodities (cereals, roots and tubers, pulses, oilseeds and oils other than tree crop oils, meat and dairy products) are converted into calorie content equivalents and then aggregated.
3) Third, the self-exclusion criterion is applied when a country meeting the above two criteria formally requests to be excluded from the LIFDC category.
Furthermore, to avoid countries changing status too frequently – often due to short-term, exogenous shocks – an additional factor is used. Known as the "persistence of position" rule, this mechanism delays a country’s removal from the list of LIFDCs even if it no longer meets the income or food deficit criterion. Specifically, a country must sustain improvement for three consecutive years before its status is revised.