The cumulative deficit of social security budgets (pensions, unemployment, and health) reached, in 2025, a share of 27.8% of Romania’s total budget deficit, compared to 20.4% in 2024, mainly due to the increase in pension expenditures, as shown in the 2025 Annual Report of the Fiscal Council (CF).
According to CF calculations, in 2025 the deficit of social security budgets, expressed as a share of GDP, increased by 0.3 percentage points, while the total budget deficit decreased by 1.4%. The combination of these two developments led to an increase in the „weight” that social security systems have on the overall deficit.
A deficit of over 52 billion lei only in the state social security budget
Examined separately, the deficit of the state social security budget (BASS – public pensions), including military pensions from the Ministry of National Defense, Ministry of Internal Affairs, and Romanian Intelligence Service, reached 52.4 billion lei in 2025, an increase of 12.7 billion lei compared to the previous year.
The self-financing rate of the system - the proportion in which revenues from contributions cover pension expenditures - dropped to 73.1% in 2025, meaning that almost a quarter of the system's expenses are indirectly supported from other budgetary sources.
The main cause of this deterioration, according to CF, is the annualized impact of recalculating pensions in the public system, applied starting from September 1, 2024.
Consequently, social assistance expenditures reached 250.9 billion lei in 2025, 3.6% (equivalent to about 8.6 billion lei) above the initially budgeted level and nearly 12% (almost 27 billion lei) higher than the 2024 execution.
Two years of surplus followed by 18 years of deficit
The CF report reviews the evolution of social security systems' deficits starting from 2006-2007 when they still recorded a surplus. After 2008, the system went into deficit, and between 2010-2017, it came to represent between 62% and 92% of the total budget deficit, even exceeding the general budget deficit level in the years 2013-2016.
A significant improvement occurred in 2018 when the share of social security systems' deficit in the total budget deficit dropped to just 7.1%, following the reconfiguration of taxation by transferring social contributions from employers to employees - a measure that indirectly increased the level of revenues collected through social security contributions by about 13.9%. The improvement continued in 2019, a year in which the state social security budget deficit decreased to 9.7 billion lei, due to the increase in the number of employees in the economy.
However, starting in 2020, the trend reversed again: the deficit of social security systems rose to 38.5% of the total budget deficit in 2022, before improving to 24.2% in 2023 and 20.4% in 2024 - before the new increase recorded in 2025, reaching 27.8%.
The average pension increased by 13.8%, but it is half compared to the military pension
According to data from INS cited by CF, the average monthly pension reached 2,937 lei in 2025, an increase of 13.8% compared to the previous year, also due to the recalculation in September 2024.
Pensions paid from the state social security budget had an average value of 2,814 lei, those of agricultural pensioners were 1,041 lei, and military pensions (Ministry of National Defense, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Romanian Intelligence Service) reached an average level of 6,586 lei, with 256 lei (+4%) more than in 2024.
Read the full analysis Deficitul bugetelor de pensii și asigurări publice de sănătate a urcat la 27,8% din deficitul bugetar total on Curs de Guvernare