Government deficit of 11 billion in first three quarters of 2025

The Hague, street view
© ANP / Laurens van Putten
The Dutch government spent nearly 11 billion euros more than it received in the first nine months of 2025. The government deficit is therefore 9 billion euros larger than it was over the same period of 2024. Total public debt stood at 494 billion euros at the end of the third quarter. That is 42.4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). Statistics Netherlands (CBS) reports this on the basis of provisional figures on the Netherlands’ public finances.

In the 2025 autumn budget statement, the Ministry of Finance assumed a deficit of 21.9 billion euros for the whole of 2025, or 1.8 percent of GDP. The deficit in 2024 was almost 11 billion euros, with 3 billion euros arising in the first three quarters and 8 billion euros in the last quarter of 2024. The deficit for 2025 stands at 11 billion euros for the first three quarters. On an annualised basis, that would mean a total deficit of 19 billion euros for 2025, or 1.6 percent of GDP.

Government spending and revenues surpass 500 billion euros

In the first three quarters of 2025, government revenues were almost 22 billion euros higher than the same period last year. This increase can be seen across almost all categories of spending, from salaries for public sector workers to benefits and remittances to external parties. The largest increase was in remittances, mainly due to payments to the European Union and support for Ukraine. Annualised government spending, calculated as the sum of the last four quarters, exceeded 500 billion euros for the first time. Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, annual government spending has increased by about a half, from nearly 350 billion euros in 2019 euros to 521 billion euros this year. As a percentage of GDP, government spending grew by 2.6 percentage points over the same period, from 42.1 percent of GDP to 44.7 percent.

Government revenues also exceed 500 billion euros per year. Unlike government spending, however, government revenue as a percentage of GDP was lower than in 2019, down 0.9 percentage points to 43.1 percent of GDP this year. The collective fiscal burden as a percentage of GDP fell by 0.6 percentage points over that period, while other revenues, including natural gas revenues, fell by 0.3 percentage points of GDP.

Debt ratio down despite deficit, lowest level in 30 years

Public debt stood at 494 billion euros at the end of the third quarter of 2025. This means that government debt increased by 3 billion between the start of 2025 and the end of September. The increase in debt is significantly less than the deficit of 11 billion euros over the first three quarters of 2025. This is partly because the deficit was financed using financial assets. For example, government deposits decreased by 4 billion euros, and accrued assets decreased by 9 billion euros. By contrast, government net lending was 5 billion euros higher in 2025, much of this as a result of loans to state-owned Tennet in order to upgrade the Netherlands’ electricity network. These loans led to a rise in government debt.

Despite the increase in debt in terms of euros, the debt ratio (government debt as a percentage of GDP) fell to 42.4 percent. This was because the size of the Dutch economy grew by more than government debt grew. The debt-to-GDP ratio is now close to its lowest point in the past 30 years.

In its 2025 Budget Memorandum, the Ministry of Finance assumes that public debt will stand at 524.5 billion euros by the end of the year, or 44.2 percent of GDP.


The government balance and the debt-to-GDP ratio are important indicators for the state of a country’s public finances. The European convergence criteria permit a maximum deficit of 3 percent of GDP in a given year, and a maximum debt level of 60 percent of GDP at the end of that year.