Budget reversal and missing funds

Syria’s declared 2025 fiscal surplus plunged from roughly $500 million to about $46 million after a $454 million swing in the final quarter, exposing inconsistencies in official financial reporting and raising questions about how late-year expenditures were recorded. Finance Minister Mohammed Yisr Barnieh attributed the reduction to expanded public spending and payments of overdue obligations but did not detail those items. Observers and the IMF cautioned the small accounting surplus mainly reflected spending restraint and avoidance of Central Bank financing rather than broad economic growth, and therefore may not signal a durable economic recovery.

Structural risks and the 2026 test

Official figures show 2025 revenues of $3.493 billion against $3.447 billion in spending (a surplus equal to 0.15% of GDP), with customs duties supplying about 39% of revenues and salaries consuming 41% of expenditures. Experts described the outcome as a fragile milestone — the first fiscal surplus since 1990 but vulnerable because it stems more from temporary measures than sustained revenue expansion. The 2026 budget projects a major fiscal expansion: spending of $10.516 billion versus expected revenues of $8.716 billion, implying an estimated $1.8 billion deficit and renewed pressure to balance fiscal discipline with reconstruction and social needs. Analysts also welcomed the government’s repayment of Central Bank advances as a positive step toward monetary stability and noted IMF engagement in Damascus as an opening for wider fiscal and monetary reforms, as reported by Enab Baladi