Polish public spending nears PLN 2 trillion as debt costs surge, report says

Poland’s public spending neared PLN 2 trillion (EUR 464 billion) in 2025, with costs per resident exceeding PLN 53,000 (EUR 12,300) as debt servicing and pensions drive higher state expenditure, a new report said.

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The Forum Obywatelskiego Rozwoju (FOR) think tank said government spending reached 50.9% of GDP, a level above that recorded in Germany, Sweden and Denmark, and has increased by 9.4 percentage points over the past decade.

The largest share of spending per resident went to pensions and disability benefits, at PLN 13,900 (EUR 3,200), according to FOR’s report „The State’s Bill: Public Spending in 2025”. That exceeded combined spending on healthcare, education and science, which totaled about PLN 11,600 (EUR 2,700) per person.

Healthcare spending amounted to more than PLN 6,100 (EUR 1,400) per resident, while security and justice received around PLN 6,000 (EUR 1,400) and education and science about PLN 5,500 (EUR 1,300).

FOR warned that the fastest-growing burden on public finances was the cost of servicing government debt, which rose 23.5% year-on-year in 2025.

“The costs of servicing public debt are growing particularly quickly”, the report’s authors said, noting that debt-related expenses had already surpassed spending on the government’s 800+ child benefit program.

The report said higher spending had not produced a proportional improvement in the quality of government services. It also estimated that increased defense spending accounted for around 14% of the nominal growth in public expenditure between 2021 and 2025.

Social assistance was the only major spending category to decline on a per-person basis, falling by nearly 17%. FOR attributed the drop partly to the expiration of temporary support measures introduced during the energy crisis and period of high inflation.

The think tank calculated that if spending outside defense and debt servicing had remained at its 2021 level relative to GDP, public costs this year would have been PLN 4,227 (EUR 980) lower per resident.

Under that scenario, the public-sector deficit could have been around 3.2% of GDP rather than the projected 7.2%, the report said.

(jh)

Source: Polish Radio

Radio Poland