The Tunisian budget balance shows a surplus of 655 million dinars at the end of September 2025, compared to a deficit of 1,067 MD a year earlier, according to the report from the Ministry of Finance.
This improvement is driven by faster growth in revenue than in expenditure, while marking increased recourse to domestic debt.
Budget resources
Budget revenues increased by 6.9%, reaching 36 billion dinars. This increase is mainly explained by:
- Tax revenues, up 7.6% to 33.4 billion dinars,
- Non-tax revenue, up 13.6% to 2.4 billion dinars.
This faster progression of resources compared to budgetary expenses (+2.7% to 35.2 billion dinars) explains the transition from a deficit to a surplus in September 2025.
Remuneration
The increase in budgetary charges is mainly due to:
- The increase in remuneration expenditure by 5%, to 17.4 billion dinars,
- The increase in intervention expenditure by 10.8%, to nearly 9.2 billion dinars.
Conversely, investment and management expenses decreased by 12.2% and 13.4% respectively, to stand at 2.7 and 1.2 billion dinars. Thus, remuneration and interventions together represent 75.6% of total expenses, while management and investment constitute only 11.2%.
Debt service
Financing costs linked to debt interest decreased slightly by 4.1%, to 4.6 billion dinars.
At the same time, cash resources increased by 16.5%, to 15 billion dinars, 99% of which was mobilized to repay the principal of the debt.
The report also highlights a 19% increase in total public debt service, which exceeds 19.5 billion dinars, including 10.8 billion for domestic debt and 8.7 billion for external debt. The trend indicates increased recourse to domestic debt, up 42.7% year-on-year, while external debt fell slightly by 1.3%.
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