Bulgaria records 1.93 billion leva Budget deficit in Q1 2025
Bulgaria’s Finance Ministry has recorded a consolidated Budget deficit of 1.93 million leva in the first three months of the year, exceeding the ministry’s earlier projection of 1.9 billion leva deficit, the ministry said late on May 5.
In the same period of last year, Bulgaria recorded a Budget surplus of 403.7 million leva. The big swing was largely due to EU funds recording a surplus of 1.02 billion in the first quarter of 2024 and a deficit of 449.1 million leva in the same period of this year, the ministry said.
Last year, the EU funds balance was boosted by one-off EU funds inflows in March as a rebate for expenditures made by Bulgaria in late 2023, under EU’s previous multi-year budget framework. In 2025, the EU funds deficit was due to Bulgaria stepping up its utilisation of EU funds under the Recovery and Resilience Facility, the ministry said.
The finance ministry said it projected the consolidated Budget deficit to remain largely unchanged at 1.9 billion leva for the first four months of the year, or about 0.9 per cent of this year’s projected GDP.
Consolidated budget revenue in January-March was 16.83 billion leva, up 6.8 per cent, mainly due to the increase in tax revenues, which rose by 13.3 per cent to 13.63 billion leva, the ministry said.
Spending was 18.76 billion leva, up from 15.36 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)
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