Tunisian State Budget Posts 2-Billion-Dinar Surplus in Q1 2025

Tunisia’s state budget recorded a surplus of 2 billion dinars in the first quarter of 2025, marking a 74% increase compared to the same period in 2024, according to a report on the “Provisional Results of Budget Execution” released by the Ministry of Finance.

Tax Revenues on the Rise

This performance is primarily driven by a 3.9% increase in total budgetary resources, which reached 12.5 billion dinars.

Tax revenues rose by 7.7% to reach 11.2 billion dinars, while non-tax revenues experienced a modest uptick of 2%, amounting to nearly 1.2 billion dinars.

Spending Under Control

Budget expenditures remained virtually unchanged at 10.3 billion dinars, reflecting a slight decline of 0.6%. However, some expenditure categories showed significant variation:

• +3% in wage spending, reaching 5.48 billion dinars

• +16% in public interventions, totaling 2.4 billion dinars

• -33.7% in investment spending, limited to 0.5 billion dinars

• -27.7% in operating expenses, reduced to 0.2 billion dinars

Lower Interest Burden, But Growing Debt

Debt servicing costs (interest payments) fell by 10.4%, amounting to 1.6 billion dinars, compared to 1.8 billion dinars the previous year.

Nevertheless, the total public debt service soared by 26%, exceeding 9 billion dinars, with 57% linked to external debt—around 5.2 billion dinars.

Treasury resources surged by 49.8% to reach 5.5 billion dinars, primarily used to repay the principal on public debt.

Breakdown of Government Spending

The composition of government expenditure remains largely unchanged, with:

• 53.2% allocated to wages

• 23.3% to public interventions

• 15.9% to debt servicing

• 5% to investment

• 2.6% to operating costs

While Tunisia’s budget indicators for the first quarter of 2025 reflect improved tax revenues and disciplined spending, the growing burden of debt servicing—especially from external sources—highlights the urgent need to strengthen fiscal sustainability and rebalance priorities between investment and administrative management.