% of GDP - Source frequency: annual · Methodology · Corrections
Australia's federal budget balance (% gdp) was -0.8% as of January 2026. The underlying cash balance of the Australian Government as a share of GDP: revenue less spending, the Budget Papers' headline measure. Positive = surplus; Negative = deficit. Outcomes only; Budget forecasts are not shown. Persistent deficits add to debt. Surpluses reduce debt and provide a buffer for future downturns. Data is sourced from Budget Paper No. 1 Statement 11 (Historical Australian Government Data), underlying cash balance, per cent of GDP; latest year from the Final Budget Outcome. and updated annually.
The underlying cash balance of the Australian Government as a share of GDP: revenue less spending, the Budget Papers' headline measure. Positive = surplus; Negative = deficit. Outcomes only; Budget forecasts are not shown.
Persistent deficits add to debt. Surpluses reduce debt and provide a buffer for future downturns.
This data is sourced programmatically from official statistical APIs and data feeds (Budget Paper No. 1 Statement 11 (Historical Australian Government Data), underlying cash balance, per cent of GDP; latest year from the Final Budget Outcome.), updated annually. The source link above points to the human-readable publication page, which presents the same underlying data in a different format (e.g. Excel workbook, PDF release). Our pipeline fetches the machine-readable version automatically and converts it to the standardised format shown here.
See all sources and methodology on the data sources page.
