The deterioration of public finances in Colombia continues to be deepened, as shown by the most recent fiscal monitor of Corficolombian Highest registered for that month in the history of the country, while the pressures in spending do not yield.
These analysts pointed out that this is added a deficit Annualized total that remains at 7.5% of GDP, exceeding the goal established in the medium -term fiscal framework (MFMP), set at 7.1% of GDP by 2025; and shows a challenging and very complex panorama, even with the suspension of the fiscal rule.
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The panorama is aggravated with the critical status of the public box, since the balance of national treasure deposits (DTN), which reflects the available liquidity of the government, was located at $ 10.8 billion as of July 25; A level that is characterized by being the lowest point for that date in the last five years, making alarms more sound about the capacity of payment of the State in the remainder of the year.
A hole that continues to grow and worry more and more
Between January and May of 2025, the deficit of the central national government was 3.1% of GDP, which is equivalent to the highest historical fiscal imbalance for that period and is observed after carefully reviewing the trend 12 months mobile, where the total deficit stabilized around 7.5% of GDP.
The government’s box does not go through its best moment and the growth of the collection does not help enough.
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Given this, Corficolombiana maintains its estimate of deficit for the closing of 2025 at that same level (7.5%), But it warns that bias is up and that the main factor behind this risk is the lag in collection in the face of official expectations, since The accumulated tax income amounts to $ 8 billion, a gap that threatens the fiscal consolidation provided for the second semester.
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“The behavior of these indicators is consistent with the fall in the collection and with a budget execution that, although it improves against 2024, remains below the historical average. In addition, it calls into question the sustainability of the short -term operations that the Government has been carrying out to cover its immediate obligations,” they highlighted from Corfi.
Government income via taxes are still short
Journal to other indicators of the report, it is observed that during June 2025 the total tax collection reached $ 21.9 billion, registering a growth of 13.1% compared to the same month of the previous year. This increase was mainly driven for the income tax, which grew 11.6% and contributed 8.6 percentage points to the total increase.
The government’s box does not go through its best moment and the growth of the collection does not help enough.
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“In the first half of the year, the tax collection amounted to $ 148.9 billion, increasing 9.7% compared to the same period of 2024. This figure is lower by $ 10.7 billion (7.2%) to the path implicitly implicit in the expectation of the medium -term fiscal framework,” adds the report.
This is why they insist that the misalignment between the projected and the projected has been a constant in 2025 and although the income tax maintains a growth trajectory, other components such as VAT and income from external sources have shown more volatile behaviors, which means that together, tax revenues are not complying with the goals defined for the year.
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It should be remembered that between January and June of this year, the budget obligations General of the Nation (PGN), excluding debt service, reached $ 153.5 billion, equivalent to an execution of 37.2% compared to total appropriations, a figure that represents an improvement of 0.6 percentage points compared to 2024, but it is maintained 1.7 points below the historical average between 2000 and 2024.
“Regarding investment spending, the obligations added $ 20.3 billion, corresponding to 24.2% of the appropriations for this item. Although this figure exceeds 2.2 percentage points registered in the same period of the previous year, 1.5 points are still 1.5 points below the historical average,” they said additionally.
The government’s box does not go through its best moment and the growth of the collection does not help enough.
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Said, the data reflect a partial advance in the budget execution, but also evidence the operational and financial limitations of the State to accelerate public investment, generating a lag that directly affects the capacity of public spending to stimulate economic growth in a context of growth that improves but remains limited.
Sector disparity in execution
When analyzing the behavior by sectors, Corficolombiana points out that education, health and social protection, as well as mines and energy, have been the ones that have presented the largest budgetary executions so far this year; Since they concentrate a good part of social spending, they have maintained a rhythm of implementation greater than the average of the national budget.
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In contrast, entities such as Registry, the Presidency of the Republic and the sports and recreation sector have registered the lower levels of execution between January and June; In the midst of a dispersion in spending management reflects asymmetries in the planning, contracting and execution of public resources.
Based on the results of the first semester and the current state of public finances, Corficolombiana warns about the high probability that the Government does not manage to meet the fiscal goal of the medium -term fiscal framework for the closure of 2025, since the combination of an insufficient collection, an accumulated deficit in historical maximums, an execution still behind and a box in critical minimums raises a challenging scenario for the next months.
The government’s box does not go through its best moment and the growth of the collection does not help enough.
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“The government maneuver margin is significantly reduced to this panorama. Compliance with spending commitments, the execution of investment projects and the payment of the debt service depend largely on the fact that the negative trend in income is reversed or adopted Containment measures in spending, without further deteriorating the economic cycle, ”they concluded.
In this way it can be said that the reading of the report is clear and points to the fact that the country’s tax balance is in an increasingly delicate situation in which the deficit does not yield, the liquidity is exhausted, and the goals of the fiscal framework seem more and more difficult to reach; Therefore, with a second semester, the challenge for fiscal policy will be to prevent current imbalances into a structural ballast for macroeconomic sustainability.
Daniel Hernández Naranjo
Portfolio journalist
