Finance
Russia ran a 2025 budget deficit of 2.6% of GDP, highest since 2020
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on January 19, 2026
2 min readLast updated: January 19, 2026
Global Banking & Finance Review®
Company
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on January 19, 2026
2 min readLast updated: January 19, 2026
Russia's 2025 budget deficit reached 2.6% of GDP, the highest since 2020, due to reduced energy revenues and increased spending.
MOSCOW, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Russia ran a budget deficit of 5.6 trillion roubles ($72.12 billion), or 2.6% of GDP, in 2025, the Finance Ministry said on Monday, the highest deficit since 2020 as a percentage of GDP and the highest since 2006 in rouble terms.
Russia had a fiscal deficit equal to 1.7% of GDP in 2024. In 2025, the government raised the deficit target twice from the initially targeted 1.2 trillion roubles, or 0.5% of GDP, due to shrinking energy revenues and a strong rouble.
Budget revenues amounted to 37.28 trillion roubles, down by 7.5% from the initial target, due to a 24% fall in oil and gas revenues, which hit the lowest level since 2020, despite corporate profit and personal income tax hikes.
Budget spending, which amounted to 42.93 trillion roubles, rose 6.8% from 2024 and was 3.5% higher than the initial budget plan.
The government raised the value-added tax to keep this year's deficit at 1.6% of GDP, but with prices for Russian oil below the 2026 average of $59 per barrel used in the budget calculations, analysts doubt the government's ability to stay on target.
($1 = 77.6455 roubles)
(Reporting by Darya Korsunskaya; Writing by Gleb Bryanski; Editing by Susan Fenton)
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the total monetary value of all goods and services produced within a country's borders in a specific time period.
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