UBI Programs

United States

Project 100+ was GiveDirectly's COVID-19 emergency cash relief program, described by the organization as the largest privately-funded cash transfer program in U.S. history. It delivered one-time $1,000 payments to nearly 200,000 low-income households across nearly every U.S. state (all but Wyoming), plus Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico, between April 2020 and October 2021. The program was funded entirely by private donations and philanthropic/corporate supporters, including Schusterman Family Philanthropies, Google.org, Flourish, NBA Cares, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. GiveDirectly partnered with Propel (maker of the Providers SNAP-benefits app) and Stand for Children to identify and reach recipients, though GiveDirectly managed the end-to-end transfer process itself. The program has since concluded and is closed to new donations or recipients.

United States

Project Empower was a 2022 guaranteed income pilot that gave $1,000/month, unconditional cash payments for six months to 10 immigrant survivors of domestic/gender-based violence (and their 20 children) who were existing clients of Tahirih Justice Center in the San Francisco Bay Area. It was a three-way nonprofit collaboration: My New Red Shoes (now rebranded mBOLDen Change) funded and designed the guaranteed-income model, Tahirih Justice Center identified participants from its client base and provided case management, and Community Financial Resources handled financial administration, debit cards, and financial education. The pilot specifically targeted immigrant survivors, a population largely excluded from mainstream safety-net and banking systems due to immigration status. Funding came from private/philanthropic donors to My New Red Shoes. A second cohort was announced as a 2023 goal in the pilot report, but no independent source was found confirming it launched.

United States

Project HOME Trust is a guaranteed income pilot run by the Quality Housing Coalition (QHC), a Portland, Maine nonprofit, providing single mothers who had experienced homelessness with unrestricted monthly cash payments alongside housing navigation and in-home health outreach. The first cohort (June 2023-May 2024) gave $1,000/month to 20 mothers; cash assistance was privately funded while staffing was supported by a City of Portland Community Development Block Grant. QHC evaluated the pilot as a randomized controlled trial with research partner Stepwise Data Research. As of QHC's current website, the program has expanded and states it provides direct cash assistance to a cumulative 67 single mothers.

United States

Project Resilience was the first county-led guaranteed income pilot in the United States, run by Ulster County, New York in partnership with the Community Foundations of the Hudson Valley and Ulster Savings Bank. It provided 100 low-income households with monthly unconditional cash payments of $500 from May 2021, extended through September 2022 with a phased-down amount in the final three months. The program was funded entirely through private donations to the county's Project Resilience relief fund, with no taxpayer dollars used. The University of Pennsylvania's Center for Guaranteed Income Research (CGIR) designed the study, selected participants, and evaluated outcomes against a randomized control group.

United States

Project Solid Ground was a 12-month guaranteed income pilot that provided $1,000 per month to 15 low-income Twin Cities residents from October 2020 through September 2021. It was privately funded by a group of anonymous donors organized by philanthropist Nancy Somers through the Nancy Somers Family Foundation (NSFF). The program was implemented in partnership with Avivo, a Minneapolis social-services nonprofit, which randomly selected recipients from among people already enrolled in its treatment, training, housing, and career-advancement services. Funds were distributed on prepaid debit cards with no restrictions on use, and recipients checked in monthly with Avivo staff on wellbeing, housing, health, finances, education, and employment. The pilot has concluded and there is no evidence it continued or was renewed under this name.

UBI is a continuously-streaming ERC-20 token distributed to every human verified on the Proof of Humanity registry, a decentralized Sybil-resistant identity system co-created by Kleros and Democracy Earth Foundation. Verified humans accrue 1 UBI/hour (about 720 UBI/month) that they can claim to an Ethereum wallet indefinitely, as long as their humanity status remains valid. Launched in 2021 as the first application built on Proof of Humanity, the UBI token's market value has collapsed to near zero, though the underlying identity registry (now Proof of Humanity V2, on Gnosis Chain) remains actively maintained by Kleros as of 2026. The token distribution component itself shows minimal trading activity and is economically marginal.

United States

The Providence Guaranteed Income Pilot Program provided 110 low-income Providence, Rhode Island residents with $500 unconditional monthly cash payments for 18 months (November 2021-April 2023). Launched by Mayor Jorge Elorza as part of the Mayors for a Guaranteed Income coalition, it was administered by Amos House and evaluated by the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Guaranteed Income Research. The initial 12 months were funded entirely by private philanthropy (including Mayors for a Guaranteed Income, United Way of Rhode Island, Rhode Island Foundation, and others); a six-month extension was funded with $500,000 in federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds via the City of Providence. Participants were selected by lottery from a pool of more than 4,000 applicants and split into treatment and control groups for research purposes.

Brazil

A privately-funded, unconditional 'lifetime basic income' paid by the Brazilian NGO Instituto ReCivitas to residents of Quatinga Velho, a rural village in Mogi das Cruzes, São Paulo. Started as an experimental pilot in October 2008 (paying ~30 BRL/month to about 100 residents through 2014), it was relaunched in January 2016 as the permanent 'Basic Income Startup', paying 40 BRL (~USD 10) per month per person, intended to last at least 20 years per recipient. In November 2022 ReCivitas reported it had scaled to 111 participants receiving combined transfers (~150 BRL/month) before restructuring toward a capitalized reserve fund (FRRB) that deposits an initial 10,000 BRL for each resident aged 0-3 to generate permanent, self-sustaining income. Funded entirely by private donations and ReCivitas's own resources, with no government funding.

United States

This is a Guaranteed Basic Income (GBI) pilot for justice-involved residents of Santa Clara County, administered by the County of Santa Clara's Office of the County Executive in partnership with the nonprofit Destination: Home. Eligible participants, referred by County reentry, probation, and community partners rather than through an open application, receive $1,200 per month, unconditional, for 24 months to help reduce homelessness risk and recidivism. Funding is a public/private mix, combining federal ARPA dollars, County general funds, California state funding, AB 109 realignment funds, and philanthropic contributions from Destination: Home. Payments are distributed via prepaid debit card through partner Community Financial Resources (CFR). The pilot includes a research and evaluation component tracking outcomes such as recidivism, housing stability, and self-sufficiency.

United States

RAFT was a one-time, unconditional $4,000 cash payment program for low-income San Diego County families with children under 18 and seniors 55+, prioritizing those at risk of homelessness. Served residents of 39 COVID-impacted 'Health Equity' zip codes with household income at/below 200% FPL. Administered by nonprofit Jewish Family Service of San Diego, funded with $10 million in federal ARPA funds via the County of San Diego HHSA. Recipients selected by lottery from over 22,000 applicants. Distributed roughly $9 million to ~2,243 households between June and August 2023, completion announced February 2024.

Panama

Red de Oportunidades is Panama's national conditional cash transfer program, run by the Ministry of Social Development (MIDES), that provides families in extreme poverty (especially in rural and indigenous comarcas) with a monthly stipend in exchange for meeting health and education co-responsibilities. Households are identified through geographic targeting of the poorest corregimientos combined with a proxy-means-test poverty score, removing subjective selection. Funded entirely by the Government of Panama, it has run continuously since 2006 alongside sister programs like 120 a los 65 and Angel Guardian. It pairs cash transfers with family accompaniment and local infrastructure investment aimed at water, sanitation, electrification and roads in extreme-poverty corregimientos.

Nicaragua

Red de Protección Social (RPS, "Social Protection Network") was a Nicaraguan government conditional cash transfer program that ran from 2000 to 2006, paying poor rural mothers bimonthly cash grants conditioned on children's school attendance, growth monitoring, vaccinations, and health check-ups. It was modeled on Mexico's PROGRESA and funded primarily by the Inter-American Development Bank and the Central American Bank for Economic Integration alongside the Government of Nicaragua, with technical/evaluation support from IFPRI. RPS-I (2000-2002) covered about 10,000 households in six rural municipalities in Madriz and Matagalpa; RPS-II (2003-2006) expanded to roughly 30,000 households before the incoming Ortega administration discontinued the program in 2007, replacing it with different food-production initiatives (Hambre Cero, Usura Cero). It is now permanently discontinued and does not accept new participants.

Italy

Reddito di Cittadinanza (Citizens' Income) was Italy's national guaranteed minimum income program, active April 2019 to December 2023. It combined an income top-up (up to EUR 500/month) with a housing allowance (up to EUR 280/month, EUR 780 total for a single renter) for low-income households meeting ISEE, asset, and 10-year residency requirements. Able-bodied recipients had to register with employment centers and sign a job-seeking or social-inclusion pact. Funds were paid monthly onto a prepaid 'Carta RdC' debit card via Poste Italiane. The program, which cost an estimated EUR 34-38 billion in total, was abolished 1 January 2024 and replaced by two narrower successor schemes.

Italy

A municipal guaranteed-minimum-income pilot launched by the City of Livorno in February 2016 under Mayor Filippo Nogarin, initially providing EUR 500/month for 6 months to 100 low-income families selected from nearly 1,000 applicants. The program was renewed and restructured in 2017 (EUR 80-220/month for 9 months to 358 of 533 eligible households, funded by a EUR 400,000 budget) and again in 2018 (EUR 200/month for 12 months to 180 beneficiaries, funded by EUR 450,000, partly from increased cemetery fees). Billed locally as one of Italy's first municipal 'reddito di cittadinanza' experiments, it required unemployment, strict income (ISEE) and residency thresholds, and in 2016 a community-service work requirement. No further editions have been publicly documented after 2018, and the program appears to have ended around the time Livorno's administration changed (2019) and Italy's unrelated national means-tested program of the same name launched.

Brazil

In November 2009, the small mountain town of Santo Antônio do Pinhal (population ~7,000), São Paulo state, enacted Municipal Law No. 1,090/2009, implementing a Renda Básica de Cidadania (Basic Citizenship Income) under Brazil's 2004 federal basic income law (Lei 10.835/2004). The law reserved 6% of municipal tax revenue in a dedicated fund to pay an unconditional dividend to every resident of 5+ years, regardless of income. It was widely praised by Senator Eduardo Suplicy as the first Brazilian municipality to adopt such a program. However, subsequent academic field research (FGV-EAESP, 2015) found the fund and payment mechanism were never actually operationalized due to financing shortfalls, so no cash disbursements appear to have been made to residents despite the law remaining formally on the books.

Brazil

Renda Básica de Cidadania (RBC) is a municipal guaranteed-income program run by the City of Maricá, Brazil, funded largely by oil royalties. Launched in its original form in 2013 and redesigned as an individual (not household) monthly cash benefit in 2019, it is widely cited as the largest ongoing basic-income program in Latin America. Eligible low-income residents receive a monthly payment in mumbuca, a local digital currency pegged 1:1 to the Brazilian real and spendable only within Maricá via a card or app. As of 2026 the program pays R$230/month per eligible individual to more than 70,000 residents.

Portugal

A proposed unconditional basic income pilot announced in 2021 by a small group of independent researchers/entrepreneurs (Rui Pereira and Surabhi Srivastava), with academic support from UBIEXP (University of Minho's basic income research center) and in negotiation with the Alcácer do Sal municipal council (Setúbal district, Alentejo, Portugal). The plan was to give a group of residents an unconditional monthly cash payment for two years to study effects on employment, wellbeing and community. As of the most recent documentation found (mid-2022), the municipality itself described the project as still 'on paper' and dependent on securing European, municipal, and crowdfunded/philanthropic financing that was never confirmed as obtained. No evidence was found that cash payments to any recipients ever actually began, and there is no mention of the pilot in Alcácer do Sal's more recent municipal budgets (2024-2026) or in basic-income tracking sources such as BIEN or Wikipedia's list of UBI pilots.

Vietnam

Resolution 42/2020/NQ-CP was a nationwide COVID-19 emergency relief resolution issued by the Government of Vietnam on April 9, 2020, providing direct cash support to people economically affected by the pandemic. It funded six categories of recipients — workers with suspended labor contracts, terminated or informal workers who lost jobs, small household businesses, war/revolution meritorious-service pensioners, social-protection beneficiaries, and poor/near-poor households — with monthly or lump-sum payments of VND 250,000 to 1,800,000 for up to three months (April-June 2020). The package, worth an estimated VND 62 trillion (about USD 2.6-2.7 billion), was funded entirely through central and local state budgets, supplemented by zero-interest, collateral-free loans to employers via the Vietnam Bank for Social Policies. Implementation was carried out by the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, Vietnam Social Security, and provincial/commune People's Committees.

United States

Cherokee Nation used a portion of its $1.8 billion in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding to provide a one-time $2,000 lump-sum COVID-19 relief payment to every enrolled Cherokee Nation citizen, regardless of age, income, or residency. Legislation authorizing the payments was signed by Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. in 2021. Applications opened via the tribe's online Gadugi Portal on June 1, 2021. Roughly 392,832 citizens were eligible, with over 313,900 having received payment as of mid-2021 reporting and the window later extended through June 1, 2024 for citizens with pending citizenship applications. The program was administered by Cherokee Nation, not an individual official.

United States

The Restorative Reentry Fund is a guaranteed income pilot run by Community Works West, an Oakland, California nonprofit that provides wraparound services for people impacted by the justice system. It gives unconditional monthly cash payments to adults reentering society after incarceration, paired with a peer advocate (who is also formerly incarcerated) and financial coaching. A cohort of 38 participants was announced in February 2023 in partnership with UpTogether, receiving $1,000 per month for 12 months followed by $500 per month for 6 months. The Fund is philanthropically funded through the East Bay Community Foundation's Remy Fund for Racial and Environmental Justice and COVID-19: A Just East Bay Response Fund. Its goal is to assess how guaranteed income affects the well-being, stability, and economic mobility of people returning home from prison or jail.

United States

The Returning Citizens Stimulus (RCS) is a milestone-based cash transfer program launched in April 2020 by the Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO), a national reentry-services nonprofit, to provide emergency financial support to people recently released from incarceration during the COVID-19 pandemic. CEO partnered with 32 other reentry organizations to operate RCS in 28 cities nationwide, with the large majority of participants concentrated in New York City, Los Angeles, Oakland, Detroit, New Orleans, Tulsa, and Denver. The program was funded by roughly $24 million from the Justice and Mobility Fund, a collaboration of the Ford Foundation and Blue Meridian Partners with support from the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies. MDRC independently evaluated the program's implementation and participant outcomes.

United States

The Returning Home Career Grant is a guaranteed-income pilot for adults returning home from incarceration at Santa Rita Jail in Alameda County, California. It is run by Rubicon Programs as the lead "backbone" agency of the Better Careers Design Group (BCDG), a coalition that also includes the Alameda County Workforce Development Board, Alameda County Probation Department, Growth Sector, and Third Sector. At least 15 justice-involved adults, nominated by partner community-based organizations, receive a $1,500 monthly unrestricted stipend for 9-18 months (up to $27,000 total) plus one-on-one mentorship and career coaching. The pilot launched in early 2022 with $500,000 in seed funding from the James Irvine Foundation as part of its statewide Better Careers initiative.

Barbados

The Reverse Tax Credit (RTC) is a refundable cash rebate run by the Barbados Revenue Authority (BRA) that operates like a negative income tax, paying up to BDS $1,300 a year to low-income employed residents earning $25,000 or less annually. It is funded by the Government of Barbados as part of its cost-of-living relief measures and financed through general tax/National Insurance administration rather than a separate donor fund. Eligible residents file an annual claim through the BRA's TAMIS online portal, and funds are disbursed via direct deposit or cheque. In December 2025 the BRA paid out $16.2 million to nearly 12,000 recipients, plus a further $2.6 million by cheque to about 2,000 people without banking details on file.

United States

The Richmond Rapid Response Fund (R3F) is a COVID-19 emergency relief initiative launched May 5, 2020 by the City of Richmond, CA and a coalition of local nonprofits (RYSE Center, EdFund West, Richmond Promise, Building Blocks for Kids), born out of the West Contra Costa COVID Community Care Coalition. It provided direct cash disbursements to residents impacted by the pandemic, funded by roughly $600,000 in city ARPA funds plus philanthropic and corporate donations, with a $9 million multi-phase fundraising goal. R3F also expanded into rent/eviction-prevention assistance and later served as the founding Contra Costa County partner for the California Abundant Birth Project's guaranteed-income expansion. No evidence was found of R3F itself running a structured recurring monthly guaranteed-income benefit matching the seed record's parameters.

United States

The Richmond Resilience Initiative (RRI) is a City of Richmond guaranteed income program run by the Office of Community Wealth Building (OCWB) in partnership with UpTogether. This fourth cohort, funded by a $500,000 City appropriation plus a $60,300 philanthropic gift from UpTogether, provides 42 working families with $500 per month for 24 months with no strings attached. The cohort prioritizes single parents and primary caregivers (including guardians with custody, stepparents, and foster parents) who earn too much to qualify for most public benefits but still cannot afford the cost of living in Richmond (the "cliff effect"). Participants may also opt in to three optional research surveys, each carrying a $50 incentive, without affecting continued monthly payments.