April government income grew 12.5%
Surprisingly, in April 2026 debt service costs declined by 7.6% year-on-year to R9 billion. This helped to achieve a lower fiscal deficit.
Black News 
April government income grew 12.5% year-on-year. This followed an 8.9% year-on-year increase in March.
Outlays rose by 7.1% year-on-year after a 24.6% surge in March. Consequently, the fiscal deficit eased marginally to R63.6 billion in April 2026 from R64.6 billion in April 2025. It remained substantially below the recent peak of R80.4 billion in April 2021.
The National Treasury said both income and outlays exceeded the equivalent April 2025 measures. April 2026 income was at 5.65% of budgeted income. This compared with 5.24% in April 2025. Outlays were at 7.6% compared with 7.27%.
Fiscal year detail
Revenue for the 2025/26 fiscal year grew by 10.2%. This exceeded the February 2026 Budget estimate of a 9.3% increase.
Outlays for the 2025/26 fiscal year rose by 8.4%. This was only marginally below the Budget forecast of 8.5%.
The National Treasury in its February 2026 Budget Review expected income growth of only 5.2% in the 2026/27 fiscal year. Outlays were only supposed to rise by 2.4%.
S&P Global Ratings on 29 May expected fiscal consolidation to continue through 2029/30, leading to a decline in government debt as a percentage of GDP. This forecast is based on improving tax collection and expenditure restraint.
Debt service
The focus of fiscal policy has been to reduce government debt. This is because government debt increased from under 25% of the economy in 2008/09 to 77% in 2024/25.
Consequently, debt-service costs over the same period climbed from 9 cents of every rand of tax revenue to 21 cents. This meant that paying interest on debt took away from spending on public services and infrastructure.
That is why economists focus on how much government spends on servicing its debt. In the 2025/26 fiscal year, interest payments grew by 8.3% to R417.7 billion.
This growth rate exceeded the increase in transfers to provinces. This category grew by 8.1% to R649.3 billion.
Surprisingly, in April 2026 debt service costs declined by 7.6% year-on-year to R9 billion. This helped to achieve a lower fiscal deficit. The main driver of the reduction was that April government income grew 12.5%.
