Saudi Arabia Records Largest Budget Deficit Since 2020

Via The Cradle

Saudi Arabia recorded its widest quarterly budget deficit in five years in the final three months of 2025, as lower crude oil prices weigh down the kingdom’s finances, Bloomberg is reporting.

Data released by the Saudi Ministry of Finance  shows the government posted a deficit of 94.9 billion riyals ($25.3 billion) in the fourth quarter, which brought the total shortfall for 2025 to nearly 276.6 billion riyals ($73.73 billion), more than double the previous year’s 115.6 billion riyals ($30.82 billion) deficit in 2024. 

The full-year deficit amounted to roughly 5.5 percent of gross domestic product.

Non-oil revenue reached about 122.6 billion riyals ($32.68 billion) in the fourth quarter of 2025, while oil revenue fell to around 154.2 billion riyals ($41.10 billion), down from 170.8 billion riyals ($45.53 billion) in the same period a year earlier, according to Finance Ministry data.

Saudi Arabia has been running budget deficits since late 2022, with Bloomberg Economics noting that the kingdom would need oil prices to average about $97 per barrel in 2025 to balance its budget.

That figure rises to roughly $114 per barrel when domestic spending by the sovereign wealth fund is included. Meanwhile, Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil prices, is currently trading at around $71.

This gap has prompted heavier borrowing on international bond markets, as well as major delays and downscaling of the Kingdom’s large-scale megaprojects tied to the Saudi Vision 2030 program, championed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS).

Bloomberg reported in late January that Saudi authorities had begun pressing some of the kingdom’s wealthiest families to inject additional capital into domestic ventures, as Vision 2030 megaprojects face scaling back or suspension. 

In the same month, Reuters reported that the construction of the Mukaab, the towering cube-shaped centerpiece of Riyadh’s New Murabba development, was suspended beyond initial groundwork, as the Public Investment Fund (PIF) reassessed financing and feasibility. 

The Financial Times had also reported that Saudi Arabia’s $1.5 trillion NEOM development is set to be significantly “downscaled and redesigned,” with its flagship component, The Line, being “radically scaled back.”

These scale-backs and delays come as capital is redirected toward priority projects tied to Expo 2030 and the 2034 World Cup, as well as sectors expected to deliver quicker returns, including logistics, mining, and AI.

Saudi officials expect the fiscal deficit this year to narrow to 3.3 percent of GDP; however, analysts at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Bank of America Corp. project a higher figure in the range of five to six percent.