{"id":106013,"date":"2026-02-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/enterpriseam.com\/ksa\/2026\/02\/24\/saudis-budget-deficit-widens-to-five-year-high-in-4q-2025\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T00:00:00","slug":"saudis-budget-deficit-widens-to-five-year-high-in-4q-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/enterpriseam.com\/ksa\/2026\/02\/24\/saudis-budget-deficit-widens-to-five-year-high-in-4q-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Saudi\u2019s Budget deficit widens to five-year high in 4Q 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"padding:0;margin:0;line-height:1.15;text-align:left\"><strong> Saudi Arabia's budget deficit widened to SAR 94.8 bn in 4Q 2025<\/strong>, the highest level in over five years, according to the Finance Ministry\u2019s <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/ent.news\/2026\/2\/1402.pdf\" style=\"\">quarterly budget performance report (pdf)<\/a>. The figure pushes the full-year deficit to SAR 276.6 bn \u2014 more than double the initially projected SAR 101 bn and 13% higher than the most recent official projections. This was driven by a 12% decline in annual revenues to SAR 1.11 tn, as oil receipts plunged.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding:0;margin:0;line-height:1.15;text-align:left\"><strong>(** Tap or click the headline above to read this story with all of the links to our background and outside sources.)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding:0;margin:0;line-height:1.15;text-align:left\"><strong>In 4Q, the deficit was driven by a 9% y-o-y drop in revenues to SAR 276.7 bn. <\/strong>Expenditures ticked up 3% y-o-y to SAR 371.5 bn.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding:0;margin:0;line-height:1.15;text-align:left\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ent.news\/2026\/2\/1403.png?ssl=1\"\/><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding:0;margin:0;line-height:1.15;text-align:left\">\n<p class=\"tag-border-left\">The breakdown<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding:0;margin:0;line-height:1.15;text-align:left\"><strong>Oil revenue dropped 10% y-o-y to SAR 154.2 bn in 4Q 2025.<\/strong> Meanwhile, the diversification engine stalled, with non-oil revenue contracting 7% y-o-y to SAR 122.6 bn.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding:0;margin:0;line-height:1.15;text-align:left\"><strong>Total expenditure on non-financial assets (capex) saw a late-year rush<\/strong>, jumping 18% y-o-y to SAR 50.9 bn during the quarter. However, the cost of servicing the Kingdom's debt accelerated sharply, with financing expenses jumping 27% y-o-y to SAR 14.9 bn.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding:0;margin:0;line-height:1.15;text-align:left\"><strong>On a full-year basis<\/strong>, oil receipts dropped 20% y-o-y to SAR 606.5 bn, while non-oil revenue growth slowed to 1% y-o-y, closing 2025 at SAR 505.2 bn. Full-year capex shrank 12% to SAR 168.5 bn \u2014 pointing to strict capital rationalization \u2014 while total annual financing expenses jumped 22% to SAR 54.4 bn.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding:0;margin:0;line-height:1.15;text-align:left\"><strong>A debt binge protects reserves: <\/strong>Government reserves were untouched to plug the gap, leaving them intact at SAR 399 bn by year\u2019s end. The entire full-year shortfall was financed through borrowing, sending total public debt to SAR 1.51 tn.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding:0;margin:0;line-height:1.15;text-align:left\"><strong>The trend could continue this year:<\/strong> \u201cIf spending misses the budget by a similar amount in 2026, then the deficit is likely to be even higher than the 5.8% of GDP in 2025, driving debt up further,\u201d Gulf analyst at GlobalSource Partners Justin Alexander tells EnterpriseAM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Non-oil revenues contracted by 7% y-o-y in the fourth quarter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":106014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_primary_brand":0,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4693],"tags":[274,4911,10,4696,4692],"brand":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"class_list":["post-106013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-big-story-today","tag-budget","tag-deficit","tag-enterpriseam-ksa","tag-newslead","tag-the-big-story-today","wpautop","entry"],"acf":{"mongo_id":"b67ba5a4-25c5-4d84-a35a-6418814520cb","order":"3","is_powered_by":false,"story_type":"1","photo_url":"https:\/\/ent.news\/2026\/2\/1429.jpg","photo_position":"above","homepage_title":"","full_issue_title":"Budget deficit widens to five-year high in 4Q 2025","related_issue":[106008],"teaser":"Non-oil revenues contracted by 7% y-o-y in the fourth quarter"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.1 (Yoast SEO v27.1.1) - 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