Bulgaria records 563.9 million leva Budget surplus in January 2025
Bulgaria’s Finance Ministry has recorded a consolidated Budget surplus of 563.9 billion leva in the first month of the year, significantly outperforming the ministry’s earlier projection for a 0.4 billion leva deficit, the ministry said late on March 4.
In the first month of 2024, Bulgaria recorded a Budget surplus of 422.5 million leva.
The surplus was boosted by a one-off payment of 0.35 billion leva under Bulgaria’s military resources agreement with Denmark, which was not part of the earlier deficit projection, the ministry said. On a like-for-like basis, the consolidated Budget still recorded a 0.2 billion leva surplus.
The finance ministry said it projected a consolidated Budget deficit of one billion leva for the first two months of the year, or about 0.5 per cent of projected GDP.
With Parliament yet to pass the 2025 Budget package, the ministry is somewhat constricted in its spending under the state budget (which forms a large part of the consolidated budget) by the actual revenue collected and cannot exceed the spending done in the same period of 2024.
The National Assembly is due to start first reading debates on the 2025 Budget on March 5 and has a deadline to pass the package by the end of the month, under the framework set in Bulgaria’s budget extension act, passed by MPs in early January.
Consolidated budget revenue in January was 6.33 billion leva, up 14.4 per cent, mainly due to the increase in tax revenues, which rose by 17.4 per cent to 5.23 billion leva, the ministry said.
Spending was 5.77 billion leva, up from 4.81 billion leva in the same period of 2024, with the bulk of the increase going to higher pensions and other social spending.
(Photo: Alessandro Paiva/sxc.hu)
Please support independent journalism by clicking on the button below. For as little as three euro a month or the equivalent in other currencies, you can support The Sofia Globe via patreon.com and get access to exclusive subscriber-only content:
