Press release No. 169 of 7 April 2021
WIESBADEN – The expenditure of the overall public budget rose by 12.1% to 1,678.6 billion euros in 2020 compared with 2019. At the same time, revenue decreased by 3.5% to 1,489.4 billion euros. The Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) also reports that this was a cash deficit - as defined in public finance statistics - of 189.2 billion euros. This result shows clearly the consequences of the corona crisis for the public budgets. The deficit is the first since 2013 and the highest since the German unification. In 2019, a financial surplus of 45.2 billion euros had still been recorded. These are provisional results of the core and extra budgets of the Federation, Länder, municipalities and associations of municipalities, social security funds and EU shares, obtained in the framework of the quarterly cash statistics.