Burundi’s government spent roughly 260.5 billion francs more than it collected in domestic revenue in the period covered by the country’s latest quarterly economic bulletin, with foreign grants covering nearly all of the shortfall, according to figures published by the National Institute of Statistics of Burundi (INSBU).
The bulletin, dated August 2026, put government revenue excluding grants at 894.2 billion francs, against current expenditure of 633 billion francs and capital expenditure of 521.7 billion francs a combined 1.155 trillion francs in spending, or about 29% more than domestic revenue alone covered.
“Burundi also received 238.7 billion francs in capital grants during the period”, INSBU said. Added to domestic revenue, that brought total resources to roughly 1.133 trillion francs, narrowing the shortfall to about 21.8 billion francs — meaning grants financed close to 92% of the gap between what the government raised at home and what it spent.
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| Indicator | Billion BIF |
|---|---|
| Revenue excluding grants | 894.2 |
| Current expenditure | 633.0 |
| Capital expenditure | 521.7 |
| Total expenditure | 1,154.7 |
| Spending above domestic revenue | 260.5 |
| Capital grants | 238.7 |
| Revenue plus capital grants | 1,132.9 |
Source: INSBU, Bulletin de Conjoncture du Burundi, August 2026. See note below on a possible quarter-labeling discrepancy in the bulletin’s underlying data.
The figures illustrate a financing pattern that has drawn repeated attention from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank: Burundi is running a fiscal deficit that is narrowing on paper even as the country remains heavily reliant on external financing and a domestic revenue base both institutions have called too narrow.
Nearly half of the reported expenditure about 45% was capital spending rather than routine government operations, the bulletin showed, with current spending making up the remaining 55%. The IMF has cautioned Burundi against cutting such investment indiscriminately.
Following an April 27–May 8 mission, Fund staff said the government should protect essential services, targeted social spending and high-quality public investment even as it works to improve spending efficiency, and later urged Burundi to preserve productive investment where projects are properly prioritized and financed.
The same IMF mission found that revenue collection through March 2026 had already fallen below government targets, driven largely by weaker-than-expected non-tax revenue, including rental income and receipts from sales of goods and services. “Fiscal adjustment remains a central pillar” of the government’s stabilization strategy, the IMF said in a statement released after the mission on May 18.
The Fund is projecting Burundi’s overall fiscal deficit will narrow to 3.4% of GDP in the 2025-26 fiscal year, from 5.5% a year earlier, though it said further adjustment would be needed to meet the government’s medium-term targets. Public debt stood at 42% of GDP at the end of 2025, down from 53% in 2024, IMF staff said.
The Fund considers that level sustainable, but its Executive Board said in June that Burundi remains at high risk of debt distress, citing “revenue shortfalls, weak investment execution, arrears, and high domestic financing needs” as continuing risks.
Burundi has also changed how it finances its budget gap. For years, the government relied on direct advances from its central bank to cover deficits, a practice that fueled money-supply growth and inflation. The IMF said in May that the government had not drawn any new central bank advances so far in the current fiscal year, a shift it linked to a sharp decline in inflation, which fell from about 45.5% in April 2025 to 10.8% by March 2026.
That shift carries its own risk, according to the Fund: financing the deficit through domestic bond sales rather than the central bank means the government is competing with private borrowers for credit in Burundi’s banking system. Private-sector credit has fallen from about 41% of GDP in the 2023-24 fiscal year to roughly 35% in 2025, the IMF said.
The World Bank’s most recent assessment reaches a similar conclusion. It put Burundi’s fiscal deficit at 5.2% of GDP in 2025, down from 6.3% in 2024, aided by stronger revenue collection and the effect of high inflation on nominal tax receipts. But “dependence on domestic financing remains elevated,” the bank said. It also said government spending was a significant driver of economic activity last year, with real GDP expanding by about 4%, supported by infrastructure investment and higher recurrent expenditure that in turn fed private-sector activity.
Both institutions have pointed to Burundi’s narrow tax base as a central constraint. The IMF estimates that tax exemptions have cost the government the equivalent of 1.5% to 3% of GDP annually in recent years, and it has recommended reviewing those exemptions, expanding electronic VAT invoicing, broadening the tax base and continuing the rollout of the Burundi Revenue Authority’s e-KORI digital revenue system. Without capital grants, government spending in the period covered by the bulletin ran nearly 30% ahead of domestic revenue for every 100 francs raised domestically, the government reported spending about 129.
A review of the bulletin’s underlying data found a discrepancy that INSBU has not addressed in the document. The bulletin’s summary page labels the 894.2 billion francs in revenue, along with the expenditure and grant figures, as second-quarter 2026 totals, covering April through June.
But the bulletin’s detailed monthly revenue and expenditure tables extend only through March 2026. Adding the January, February and March monthly figures in those tables produces totals 894.19 billion francs in revenue, 238.69 billion francs in grants, 633.01 billion francs in current expenditure and 521.69 billion francs in capital expenditure that match the bulletin’s stated second-quarter figures almost to the decimal point.
Burundi’s fiscal position has strengthened by several measures that matter to its creditors, the deficit is narrowing, public debt has declined as a share of GDP, inflation has fallen sharply from last year’s peak, and the government has curtailed its use of central bank financing. But the gap between what it spends and what it collects domestically remains a central feature of that adjustment, one that both the IMF and World Bank say will depend on Burundi raising significantly more revenue at home.
