Russia's Budget Deficit

Budget deficit, % GDP (annualized)

Russia's budget deficit indicator tracks the federal government's rolling 12-month balance as a share of GDP, rebuilt each month from the finance ministry's cumulative monthly reporting rather than taken as a single-point figure. Because the number is de-cumulated and summed over a full year, it is not distorted by the seasonal pattern of Russian government spending, which is heavily back-loaded toward December. The indicator is scored against two registered anchors: 100 marks 2021's outcome, a small surplus before the war began; 0 marks a deficit of 10% of GDP, a level well outside anything the war has produced so far. The deficit is the monitor's “burn rate” — how fast the gap between what the government spends and what it collects is widening. Source: Russia's Ministry of Finance, published monthly. For Aug 2026, the latest reading is 3.3%. Against the registered pre-war baseline of -0.3%, it scores 65/100 on this monitor's index, where 100 is the pre-war level and 0 is the registered trouble line.

Plain-language label: “How fast they burn cash” — what it measures: the burn rate: how fast the gap between spending and income grows.

▸ Russia's budget deficit: how to read the numbers

“Russia Budget Deficit”: historical data against the registered trouble line

How this number is made

The magnitude behind it

Observation history

Parse-failure history

When our parser can't extract a value, we log the failure instead of guessing. Failures never silently reuse the previous value.

• 2026-09-27PARSE FAILED«fetch failed: Error: HTTP 503 for https://minfin.gov.ru/ru/statistics/fedbud/»
• 2026-09-19PARSE FAILED«fetch failed: TypeError: fetch failed»
• 2026-09-11PARSE FAILED«fetch failed: TypeError: fetch failed»
• 2026-09-10PARSE FAILED«fetch failed: TypeError: fetch failed»
• 2026-09-07PARSE FAILED«fetch failed: TypeError: fetch failed»

Availability events

• 2026-09-27SOURCE UNREACHABLEFetch attempt failed (2026-09-27). No value recorded.
• 2026-09-19SOURCE UNREACHABLEFetch attempt failed (2026-09-19). No value recorded.
• 2026-09-11SOURCE UNREACHABLEFetch attempt failed (2026-09-11). No value recorded.
• 2026-09-10SOURCE UNREACHABLEFetch attempt failed (2026-09-10). No value recorded.
• 2026-09-07SOURCE UNREACHABLEFetch attempt failed (2026-09-07). No value recorded.

Related indicators

• Russian oil and gas budget revenues
• Russia's liquid National Wealth Fund
• Russia's M2 money supply growth
• Russia's regional budget balance
• Russia's Economy
• Russia's War Economy

Background reading

• Russia's budget deficit: how to read the numbers
• How Russia finances the war: oil, debt, reserves

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