Russian federal budget deficit expected to be within targeted 2.6% of GDP in 2025 - finance minister

MOSCOW. Dec 30 (Interfax) - Russia's federal budget deficit will be within the bounds of the targeted 2.6% of GDP in 2025, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said in an interview with Rossiya 24.

The budget law for this year initially targeted a deficit of 1.173 trillion rubles or 0.5% of GDP, but amendments made in the spring raised the target to 3.792 trillion rubles or 1.7% of GDP, and changes made in the fall raised it further to 5.737 trillion rubles or 2.6% of GDP.

Preliminary data show that the deficit was 4.276 trillion rubles or 2% of GDP in the first 11 months of 2025.

Siluanov also said that Russian economic growth will slow to about 1% this year.

"We expect a dynamic of economic development on the level of about 1% GDP growth this year. In the preceding years this figure was more than 4%. The Central Bank began to pursue a tighter monetary policy this year and, indeed, this led to us also seeing a slowdown in the dynamic of economic development in a planned manner, which should lead to sustainable, balanced growth rates starting next year," he said.

The slowdown in the dynamics of economic growth is affecting the formation of the budget's resource base, but such a slowdown was anticipated, Siluanov said. "We are meeting our planned targets for revenues this year. The main indicator, the budget deficit, we planned at a level of 2.6% of GDP, and we expect execution around this figure. Today are the final days of the outgoing year, and we know that the largest amount of expenditures is carried out in the last days. Correspondingly, the largest amount of revenues for December comes in, because taxpayers fulfill their tax obligations starting from the 28th of each month. Therefore, the last days are the most critical; they can introduce some adjustments, but we see that overall we are reaching the planned indicators. All obligations are being fulfilled; we plan the deficit within the planned allocations," he said.

Siluanov also expects a further reduction in the share of oil and gas revenues in the budget. "A few years ago, the share of oil and gas in federal budget revenues was about half of all revenues; this year we see that the share of oil and gas is decreasing. This is related to the fact that energy prices have fallen and the ruble exchange rate also deviated from our initial plans. The share of oil and gas revenues in this year's budget is estimated at around 23% of total revenue. Next year, the trend of decreasing oil and gas revenues will continue; we expect it to be 1 percentage point lower than in the current year," he said.

The share of the oil and gas sectors in the economy will decline in the medium and long term, which is related to the fact that the extraction of oil and gas reserves is becoming increasingly complex, Siluanov said. The easiest extraction conditions have already been passed, and extraction from hard-to-reach reservoirs is becoming more expensive, he said. "We are providing additional preferential tax regimes and understand perfectly well that we cannot count on high levels of oil and gas revenue inflows in the long term. Therefore, we are preparing for this and are ready for it, developing the non-oil and gas sector of the economy, and the figures speak for themselves - 22% next year will be the share of oil and gas in federal budget revenue," he said.

Siluanov also said that he expects an increase in personal income tax (PIT) revenues to the federal budget in 2025 of more than 400 billion rubles. Revenues from the PIT at the 13% rate are directed to regional and municipal budgets, while the additional portion from progressive rates is credited to the federal budget.

"Overall, compared to last year's level, the PIT will increase by more than 400 billion rubles and the total amount will reach approximately 750 billion rubles. The increase will also be achieved through revenues from the taxation of deposit payments - that is, income from deposits, as interest rates are high. We expect to receive an increase of around 200 billion rubles this year from this type of income," he said.