Romania’s budget deficit fell to 7.65% of GDP in 2025, well below the 9.3% the previous year but significantly above the recommended European Union rate of 3%.
Announcing the figures on Tuesday, the finance ministry said it achieved the outcome through a balanced mix of reining in expenses, creating revenues and investment financing structure.
“The …. budget in 2025 reflects a budget deficit of 7.65% of GDP, respectively 146.03 billion lei, “ the ministry said.
Romania recorded the widest general government budget deficit among the European Union member states in 2024, at 9.3% of GDP, up from 6.6% in 2023, according to data published by Eurostat using ESA methodology.
This was nearly three times the EU average of 3.2%.
However, it was lower than the EU forecast of 8.4% of GDP in 2025. The EU has forecast a deficit of 6.2% of GDP in 2026.
Romania’s real GDP growth is expected to remain low at 1.1% in 2026 as the full effect of the freeze of public wages and pensions and tax increases take effect, in combination with still high inflation which is expected to lead to a small contraction in private consumption.
Public consumption is also forecast to drop further. However, gross fixed capital formation is expected to accelerate notably on the back of improved business confidence and completion of Recovery and Resilience Plan investments.
The decline in private consumption should also strongly contain the growth of imports, while exports are set to continue their positive trend as wage growth slows further, resulting in a positive contribution to growth of net exports, according to the EU.
In 2025, total revenues amounted to RON 662.70 billion, up 15.3% (year-on-year). Expressed as a share of GDP, total revenues advanced by 2.05 percentage points, of which 0.5 pp come from current revenues – mainly tax on salaries and income, insurance contributions and VAT – the rest being explained by European funds.
By comparison, it should be borne in mind that the level of revenues in 2024 was influenced by exceptional revenues related to the tax amnesty, in the amount of 6.3 billion lei. Excluding the impact of this temporary factor, the contribution of current revenues to the increase in the share of total revenues in GDP in 2025 is estimated at around 0.8 pp.
