Tunisia’s budget deficit had fallen by 8.7% to 2.9 billion dinars, at the end of November 2024, compared with a deficit of 3.2 billion dinars in 2023.
The 2024 Finance Law foresees a budget deficit of around 11.5 billion dinars (6.6% of GDP) for 2024 as a whole, compared with 11.3 billion dinars (7.5% of GDP) in 2023.
According to the preliminary results of the execution of the State budget up to the end of November 2024, this reduction in the deficit is due to the fact that budgetary resources, especially tax revenues, are increasing at a faster rate than expenditures.
The State’s budgetary resources increased by 5.9% to 40.6 billion dinars, compared to 38.4 billion dinars a year earlier. This increase was mainly due to a 9.6% rise in tax revenues, from 34.4 billion dinars to 37.7 billion, accounting for 92.7% of budgetary resources, while non-tax revenues fell by 30.9% to 2.3 billion dinars.
In terms of tax revenues, direct taxes increased by 11.2% to 15.8 billion dinars at the end of November. Specifically, personal income tax rose by 9% to 11.3 billion dinars, including 7.8 billion dinars from payroll taxes (+8.1%).
Corporate tax revenues rose by 17.2% to 4.5 billion dinars, driven by a 31% increase in taxes on oil companies, which amounted to 1 billion dinars. Taxes on non-oil companies increased by 13.4% to 3.4 billion dinars.
Indirect taxes increased by 8.5% to 21.9 billion dinars. This increase was mainly due to a 7% rise in VAT to 10.2 billion dinars, an 11.4% rise in customs duties to 1.8 billion dinars and a 6.1% rise in excise duties to 3.6 billion dinars.
Total government expenditure rose by 4.9% in 2024 to 43 billion dinars, compared with 41 billion dinars the previous year. This budgetary cost is made up of 20.3 billion dinars in salary expenditure (+3.6%), 10.9 billion dinars in intervention expenditure (+1%) and 5.7 billion dinars in financing costs (interest on debt, +12%).
On the other hand, capital expenditure increased by only 2.1% to 3.9 billion dinars at the end of November 2024, compared to 3.8 billion dinars a year earlier.