Greece's Ministry of National Economy and Finance publishes Jan–May 2025 budget execution showing EUR 1.875bn surplus against deficit target

Greece's Ministry of National Economy and Finance released state budget execution figures on a modified cash basis for January–May 2025, showing a cash surplus of EUR 1.875bn versus a budget target of a EUR 2.475bn deficit and a EUR 535mn deficit in the same period of 2024. The primary result was a EUR 5.343bn surplus versus a target primary surplus of EUR 1.055bn (EUR 3.197bn in January–May 2024). Net state budget revenues reached EUR 28.969bn, up EUR 1.632bn (6%) versus target, driven mainly by taxes of EUR 26.954bn (up EUR 1.677bn, 6.6%), including higher income tax receipts and VAT. The release flags timing and classification effects, including payment rescheduling of EUR 1.993bn in regular-budget payments and EUR 499mn in investment spending, plus EUR 342mn of early-2025 tax revenues counted fiscally in 2024, and estimates that excluding these items the primary surplus overperformance versus target is EUR 1.454bn. Expenditure for January–May totalled EUR 27.094bn, EUR 2.718bn below target, reflecting lower regular-budget payments due largely to delayed transfers to social security organisations and other general government entities and lower cash outlays for armaments, while investment payments were EUR 3.729bn, EUR 499mn below target; for May, net revenues were EUR 5.909bn, EUR 1.403bn above target mainly because a EUR 1.346bn Recovery and Resilience Facility tranche expected in April was received in May.