Elections & Government
01
The federal government spent RM411 billion in 2025.
Against RM336 billion raised — the closed annual accounts, read live from Malaysia's official open-data API. This first pass follows the public money; the elections half of the chapter is still to come.
Revenue · 2025
RM336.1b
everything raised: taxes, royalties, investment returns, other receipts
Spending · 2025
RM411.4b
operating (RM330.8b) plus net development (RM80.6b)
Deficit · 2025
−RM75.3b
revenue minus spending — the accounts' overall balance, a deficit
Deficit as share of revenue
22.4%
RM122 went out for every RM100 that came in
Official latestClosed annual accounts, not a live ledger — 2025 is the latest year the dataset has published (data as of 2025). A quarterly series runs slightly ahead: its latest sheet, Q2 2026, posts RM84.8b raised against RM112.6b spent.
Ministry of Finance — Accountant General's Department (JANM) — federal_finance_year & decompositions (annual federal accounts), via the data.gov.my open API · retrieved 2026-10-12 23:07 UTC
Closed annual federal accounts, 1970–2025, data as of 2025. Values published in RM million; the balance equals revenue minus operating expenditure, net development expenditure and the COVID-19 Fund, per the dataset's own identity. Federal government only — state and local finances are separate accounts. Line labels follow the datasets' lookup table (lookup_federal_finance).
The budget as RM100
02
Companies income tax is the biggest single source: RM29.11 of every RM100.
Shrink 2025 to a hundred ringgit and the whole budget fits on two lists. Of every RM100 raised, RM53.73 came from direct taxes; of every RM100 spent, RM80.41 went to keeping government running and RM19.59 to development projects.
Every RM100 raised
RM100.00
Direct taxes
RM53.73
Companies income tax
RM29.11
Individuals income tax
RM13.56
Petroleum income tax
RM5.37
Stamp duties
RM3.34
Others
RM2.35
Indirect taxes
RM23.59
Service tax
RM9.01
Sales tax
RM7.61
Excise duties
RM3.81
Others
RM1.71
Import duties
RM0.91
Export duties
RM0.54
Non-tax revenue
RM19.91
Interest and returns on investment
RM13.09
Licences and permits
RM2.99
Others
RM2.20
Petroleum royalty
RM1.63
Non-revenue receipts
RM2.78
Shares of 2025 federal revenue, rounded to the sen — lines may not sum to exactly RM100.00. Lines worth zero that year are omitted. Labels follow the dataset's own lookup table.
Every RM100 spent
RM100.00
Operating expenditure
RM80.41
Emoluments
RM24.66
Subsidies and social assistance
RM13.44
Debt service
RM13.06
Supplies and services
RM10.25
Retirement charges
RM9.37
Grants and transfers
RM9.13
Asset acquisition
RM0.31
Other expenditure
RM0.19
Development expenditure (net)
RM19.59
Economic services
RM9.27
Social services
RM6.60
Defence & security
RM2.85
General administration
RM0.87
Shares of 2025 spending (operating + net development), rounded to the sen. The four development sector lines distribute the net figure in proportion to the gross breakdown — the deep-data note below explains gross vs net.
The long view
03
51 of the 56 years in the accounts closed in deficit.
The accounts run from 1970 to 2025. Spending has exceeded revenue in every one of the last 28 years — the last year that closed without a deficit is 1997. The gap between the two lines below is the balance.
Revenue (RM billion)
Spending (RM billion)
Ringgit of the day, not adjusted for inflation — the country's economy and price level both grew many times over across this window, so the long climb of both lines is expected. What the chart is for is the vertical gap: spending sits above revenue in 51 of 56 years.
The other half of this chapter
This topic is called Elections & Government, and elections are not on this page yet. The Election Commission's (SPR) constituency and results data is not integrated in this pass, so the chapter opens with the half that has verified open data: the public money. The full topic will add the mechanics of representation — parliamentary and state constituencies, official results and turnout by seat — and connect who represents a place to the accounts shown here. Numbers and boundaries only; readers can draw their own conclusions.
Did you know
Petroleum income tax put RM5.37 of every RM100 raised in 2025.
At its peak, in 2009, the same line carried RM17.17 of every RM100. Petroleum royalty is a separate non-tax line and added another RM1.63 in 2025 — the accounts keep the two apart.
Computed from MOF federal finance data via data.gov.my
Development took RM24.77 of every RM100 spent in 1970. In 2025: RM19.59.
The split has moved inside that range for 56 years — the development share's low point is 2014, at RM14.90 per RM100. The rest is operating expenditure: salaries, pensions, debt service, subsidies and supplies.
Computed from MOF federal finance data via data.gov.my
The largest deficit in the accounts is 2022: RM99.5 billion.
That year the shortfall equalled 33.8% of revenue, with RM31.0 billion flowing through the COVID-19 Fund, a spending line the accounts list separately. The balance here is the accounts' own overall balance: revenue minus operating, net development and COVID-19 Fund spending.
Computed from MOF federal finance data via data.gov.my
Deep data
03.3
Two kinds of spending, and two ways to count one of them.
The accounts split spending into operating expenditure — the recurring cost of running government: salaries, pensions, debt service, subsidies, supplies — and development expenditure, the project spending on things like transport, utilities, schools and hospitals. In 2025 the split was RM330.8b operating to RM80.6b net development.
Series range
1970–2025
annual federal accounts; the operating-expenditure breakdown starts in 1979
Latest closed year
2025
the quarterly series runs slightly ahead, to Q2 2026
Data as of
2025
the datasets' own data_as_of marker, shown as published
Update cadence
Yearly
the page refetches daily and shows its retrieval time
Gross vs net development spend
The dataset publishes development expenditure both gross (RM81.9b in 2025) and net of loan recoveries (RM80.6b). This page uses the net figure for totals and the balance, because that is the identity the accounts themselves use; the sector breakdown describes the gross figure, so the RM100 list distributes net proportionally to it.
Federal, not state
These are the federal government's accounts only. State and local governments keep separate books — data.gov.my carries state_finance_* datasets for them — and this chapter will take those up in a later pass, alongside federal debt, which is a stock and lives outside this flow statement.
One balance, one identity
The overall balance equals revenue minus operating expenditure, net development expenditure and the COVID-19 Fund — a separate spending line the accounts carry for 2020–2022. Every figure on this page is computed from the published rows on that identity; nothing is estimated.
Ministry of Finance — Accountant General's Department (JANM) — federal_finance_year & decompositions (annual federal accounts), via the data.gov.my open API · retrieved 2026-10-12 23:07 UTC
Closed annual federal accounts, 1970–2025, data as of 2025. Values published in RM million; the balance equals revenue minus operating expenditure, net development expenditure and the COVID-19 Fund, per the dataset's own identity. Federal government only — state and local finances are separate accounts. Line labels follow the datasets' lookup table (lookup_federal_finance).
Public money is one side of the national ledger; what the country earns is the other. Next shelves: Economy and Cost of Living.