Act II · The stateStory 11 of 31
Fourteen billion in, thirteen out
In 2024 the Cyprus state took in €14.75 billion and spent €13.31 billion. One picture shows where every euro came from and where it went.
Anonymous: no sign-in, no email, and your IP address is never stored. How we handle answers
Every public argument about money in Cyprus is an argument about some part of this picture. It helps to see the whole of it once.
Read it from left to right. On the left is everything the state took in during 2024. On the right is everything it spent it on. The width of each band is the amount.
€ million; the width of each band is the amount. Taxes lose their label in the general budget: any tax can pay for any service. Contributions keep theirs. They go to the Social Insurance and GESY funds, which pay pensions, benefits and healthcare, and that is also where almost all of the 1,439 surplus sat.
← swipe to see the full chart →
Eurostat government finance statistics for Cyprus (gov_10a_main, gov_10a_taxag, gov_10a_exp), general government, accrual basis, 2024: the latest year with both the tax detail and spending by purpose. Total revenue 14,750, total expenditure 13,311. "Funds" is the Social Insurance Fund and the GESY health fund together; the statistics do not separate them. The state's payment into the funds is its contribution to GESY and other transfers (801) plus interest on the reserves it has borrowed from them (470); its contribution to the Social Insurance Fund is recorded among contributions.
What the numbers say
Money in. The largest single source is not income tax. It is VAT, at €3.17 billion, a little over a fifth of everything collected. Contributions for social insurance and GESY come to about €4 billion; that figure includes about €630 million the state itself contributes to the Social Insurance Fund. Taxes on companies, including the defence contribution, bring in €2.4 billion. Personal income tax, the one people think of first, brings in €1.29 billion with capital gains tax included: less than nine euro in every hundred.
Two pots. The middle of the picture is the part most accounts leave out. Money does not go into one pile. Taxes go into the general budget, where they stop being "VAT" or "income tax" and simply become money the state can spend on anything. Contributions go into two funds, for social insurance and for health, and can only be spent on pensions, benefits and healthcare. That is why the bands on the left arrive in colour and the general budget pays out in grey, while the green of the contributions runs all the way through.
Money out. Pensions are the largest item at €3.14 billion, almost a quarter of all spending. Health follows at €2.13 billion and education at €1.75 billion. Defence is €627 million. Interest on the public debt is €434 million.
What it means for you
Divide the spending by the people who live here and the state spent €13,657 per resident in 2024, or €37 a day. Of that daily €37, about nine went on pensions, six on health and five on schools and universities.
The surplus is yours to think about too. The state took in €1,439 million more than it spent. Look at where that band leaves from: almost all of it comes out of the funds, not out of the general budget. What workers and employers pay in covers most of the pensions and health care paid out. The surplus is what the state itself puts into the funds: the grey band between the two pots, and its contribution to the Social Insurance Fund, which the statistics count among contributions.
What people argue
Is the state big or small? Spending was 38% of the economy in 2024. Across the European Union it was 49%. On that measure the Cyprus state is well below the European average in size. Whether that is a strength or a sign of thin public services is a matter of opinion, and it is argued both ways.
What should happen to the surplus? Some want it used for relief from the cost of living. Others want it kept for paying down debt. The picture adds one fact to that argument: in the accounts the surplus sits in the funds, which have promises to keep to future pensioners.
Which side convinces you?
What should happen to the surplus?
Anonymous: no sign-in, no email, and your IP address is never stored. How we handle answers
How we know
Every figure is from Eurostat's government finance statistics for Cyprus, which the Statistical Service compiles to European rules. The picture covers "general government": the state budget, the Social Insurance and GESY funds, local authorities and other public bodies, counted together and with the payments between them netted out.
The year is 2024 because it is the latest with both the detailed tax figures and spending by purpose. Totals for 2025 are already published (revenue €15.92 billion, spending €14.68 billion), and the picture will move to 2025 when the detail follows.
The €14.75 billion includes about €1.16 billion that the state records as paying itself rather than collecting from anyone: €633 million it credits to the Social Insurance Fund, and €525 million of pension contributions the statistics impute for its own staff, whose pensions it pays directly. Both appear on the spending side as well, so the surplus is not affected.
The statistics do not separate the Social Insurance Fund from the GESY fund, so they are drawn as one. The band from the general budget into the funds is the state's contribution to GESY and other transfers, plus the interest it pays on the reserves it has borrowed from them. The state's contribution to the Social Insurance Fund, €633 million in 2024, is not in that band: the statistics record it among contributions, and the picture follows the statistics.
Corrected on 3 October 2026. An earlier version treated all contributions as paid by workers and employers. They include the state's own contribution to the Social Insurance Fund, which the statistics count among contributions.