Tax & Spend
Saudi Arabia Sees Widest Deficit Since 2018 on More Spending
A worker looks out across the plant from viewing windows in the Port Control Center at Saudi Aramco's Ras Tanura oil refinery and terminal in Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia.
Photographer: Simon Dawson/BloombergSaudi Arabia’s fiscal deficit widened in the first quarter to the highest level since 2018 as spending on projects to diversify the economy continued to rise.
The kingdom posted a budget shortfall of 125.7 billion riyals ($33.5 billion), according to the finance ministry. That compares with a deficit of 95 billion riyals in the last three months of 2025 and was more than double the figure from a year earlier.