Distillers Country guides / Guinea-Bissau
Guinea-Bissau
A one-page guide to Guinea-Bissau for the spirits trade: the country, its people, its economy and how it drinks.
At a glance
- Capital
- Bissau
- Official languages
- Portuguese
- Currency
- West African CFA franc (XOF)
- Time zone
- UTC+0 (GMT)
- Area
- 36,125 km²
People
- Population
- 2.2 million (2025)
- Population growth
- 2.2% a year
- Living in towns and cities
- 46.7%
- Aged under 15
- 38.3%
- Aged 65 and over
- 3.2%
- Life expectancy
- 64.3 years
Economy
- GDP
- US$2.5 billion (2025)
- GDP per person
- US$1,124 (2025)
- Economic growth
- 5.82% (2025)
- Inflation
- 0.87% (2025)
Climate
Warm all year, average about 26.3 C. Rainy season June to September/October; drought period December to April, with hot dry harmattan winds. Bissau averages about 2,024 mm of rain, almost all in the rainy season.
Alcohol
- Alcohol is
- Legal
- Legal drinking age
- No national minimum age reported (WHO 2018 country profile, status 2016: https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/country-profiles/substances-abuse/GNB.pdf)
- Alcohol per adult a year
- 3.11 litres of pure alcohol (2022)
- What people drink
- Beer 14%, wine 31% (2016)
Sources: World Bank (population, economy and demographics), WHO Global Health Observatory (alcohol per adult and drinking mix); Wikipedia - Guinea-Bissau; WHO country profile GNB. Figures are the latest each source publishes; the year is shown beside each one.