Shares in %
2025 expenditure by task area
Social welfare: 30 338 mn
Finances and taxes: 13 903 mn
Transportation: 10 787 mn
Education and research: 8 341 mn
Security: 7 092 mn
International relations: 3 817 mn
Agriculture and food: 3 637 mn
Other tasks areas: 8 493 mn
The largest federal task area is social welfare, accounting for just over a third of expenditure (35.1%). This expenditure is bound by law and therefore barely controllable in the medium term. Half of the expenditure goes to old-age and survivors' insurance (AHV). Other areas include federal contributions to disability insurance (IV), individual premium reductions and AHV and IV supplementary benefits, as well as migration expenditure. Expenditure growth depends largely on demographic developments, as well as inflation and salary trends. Due to the aging of the population, this expenditure is growing rapidly.
Finances and taxes account for 16.1% of expenditure. Expenditure growth in this area can be influenced only in the long term. The shares of federal receipts, for example, are set out in the Constitution and depend directly on the amount of receipts. Interest expenditure is determined by debt and the development of interest rates. Finally, national fiscal equalization expenditure is also regulated by law. This is intended to ensure that each canton has sufficient financial resources to perform its tasks.
Transportation accounts for 12.5% of expenditure. It includes expenditure on rail and public transportation (67%), road transportation (31%) and aviation (2%). Transportation expenditure is financed primarily by earmarked tax receipts and is thus largely restricted. Most of this is channeled into the railway infrastructure fund (RIF) and the motorway and urban transportation fund, through which the operation, maintenance and extension of the transportation infrastructure are financed.
The education and research task area accounts for 9.7% of expenditure, and around 84% of it is steered by the payment frameworks and guarantee credits requested with the 2025-2028 ERI dispatch of March 8, 2024. Given the high structural deficits in the federal budget, the Federal Council refrained from including the increases in ERI credits totaling 152.2 million in the 2025 budget and in the 2026-2028 financial plan. These were decided by the National Council, as the first chamber, on May 29, 2024. Switzerland is not currently associated with EU research programs. Official negotiations on association to the Horizon package have been under way since March 2024. Should such an association be possible in 2025, the Federal Council will submit a corresponding supplementary credit to Parliament.
Security accounts for 8.2% of expenditure. More than 80% of security expenditure is attributable to military national defense, which will increase by 186 million (+3.3%) in 2025, due primarily to higher spending on armaments. Security expenditure is set to grow by an average of 4.5% through to the end of the financial plan; with this expenditure trend, Armed Forces expenditure could be raised to 1% of GDP by 2035. As part of its deliberations on the 2024 Armed Forces dispatch, the Council of States, as the first chamber, adopted a 4 billion increase in the 2025-2028 Armed Forces payment framework. This increase and the offsetting of the additional expenditure are not reflected in the 2025 budget or the 2026-2028 financial plan.
The international relations task area accounts for 4.4% of budgeted expenditure. Three quarters of its expenditure goes to development cooperation. Most of the remainder is attributable to political relations, i.e. Swiss diplomatic and consular representations, and expenditure for international organizations. Every four years, the Federal Council defines the strategic focus of international cooperation (IC), by means of which Switzerland helps to alleviate need and poverty in the world. The Federal Council adopted the dispatch on the 2025-2028 IC strategy on May 22, 2024. The 2025 budget once again includes substantial contributions to support Ukraine.
About 4.2% of expenditure is budgeted for agriculture and food. The agriculture and food task area is steered via three payment frameworks: means of production, production and sales, and direct payments. Direct payments account for just over three quarters of expenditure in this task area (2.8 bn) and are set to fall by 1.5% in 2025. The Federal Council adopted the dispatch for the new 2026-2029 payment framework period on June 19, 2024. Compared to the previous period, expenditure has been reduced slightly, largely due to the implementation of the savings target of 1.4% for loosely earmarked expenditure. In the financial plan years, there are plans to shift funds from direct payments to structural improvements, among other things.
The five remaining task areas (institutional and financial conditions, culture and leisure, health, protection of the environment and spatial planning, economic relations) account for 9.8% of expenditure.
Development of 2025 expenditure
in CHF bn and % of GDP
Expenditure growth for 2025 is set to be 0.8%. As nominal GDP is expected to grow by 2.8%, the Confederation's expenditure ratio will fall from 10.5% to 10.3% of GDP. The expenditure ratio is a rough indicator of the extent of Confederation's activities relative to the overall economy.
Development of selected 2025 expenditure items by task area
in CHF mn and %
Expenditure is budgeted at 86.4 billion for 2025. Relative to the 2024 budget, it is up by 0.8% (0.7 bn). This includes expenditure of 0.7 billion for people from Ukraine seeking protection, requested as extraordinary payment requirements. Excluding extraordinary expenditure, the budget's growth rate is 2.8% (2.4 bn), which is in line with nominal economic growth (2.8%). The social welfare task area in particular is the main growth area in 2025 (+1.1 bn). The transportation, education and research and agriculture task areas are set to decline in the year of the budget. Security expenditure is set to grow by an average of 4.5% through to the end of the financial plan; with this expenditure trend, Armed Forces expenditure can be raised to 1% of GDP by 2035.
Data
Detailed data for longer periods are available under the following links:
- Link data portal
- Link Open Government Data
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Last modification 20.08.2024