巴西18州2026年预算转负，合计赤字369亿雷亚尔，在巴中资需重估地方财政风险

Renata dos Santos Ricardo Ledo/Valor After posting strong annual results since 2022, Brazil’s 26 states and the Federal District (Brasília) are expected to make a negative contribution to the country’s overall primary balance in 2026, based on estimates from the state governments themselves. The 27 subnational governments posted a combined primary surplus of R$51.6 billion in 2022, the final year of the previous administration. The balance remained positive in 2023 and 2024, at R$25.1 billion and R$31.1 billion, respectively. Last year, it was nearly flat, with a deficit of just R$90 million. Budget proposal is too optimistic, fiscal watchdog says Candidates willing to control spending, but to varying degrees For 2026, however, projections included in state budget guidelines laws, known as LDOs, point to a combined primary deficit of R$36.9 billion. The deterioration is expected to be widespread. Seven states posted primary deficits in 2023, the first year of the current gubernatorial terms. In 2026, 18 states are budgeting for a negative result. Fiscal reversal Valor compiled the 2022-2025 figures from summary budget execution reports submitted by the states to the National Treasury Secretariat (STN). The 2026 estimates were taken from the states’ own LDOs. Where the 2026 projection was later revised, Valor used the figure included in the 2027 LDO. Legal changes to the original 2026 projections were also incorporated. Figures from 2022 through 2025 were adjusted for inflation through August using the IPCA consumer price index, while the 2026 projections are shown in current values. For all periods, the calculations include the effects of the states’ public-sector pension systems, known as RPPS. Mato Grosso was the exception: because its 2026 LDO provided only a primary-balance estimate excluding the RPPS, that figure was used in the survey. São Paulo was among the states that sharply revised its primary target. Its budget guidelines approved in 2025 initially projected a R$10.28 billion surplus for 2026. In the 2027 LDO, approved this year, the state cut that forecast to R$417 million. The revised figure remains positive, but it is far below the R$8.7 billion surplus recorded at the end of 2025. In a statement, São Paulo Finance Secretary Samuel Kinoshita said the state’s decision to join Propag, the federal government’s debt-refinancing program for states, changed the composition of the items that determine the primary balance. “The revision of the target is therefore not related to a deterioration in the state’s finances, but to changes in the fiscal composition arising from the new financing and debt-management environment, as well as greater uncertainty in the national macroeconomic outlook,” Kinoshita said. Election-year spending State representatives interviewed by Valor said the 2026 primary-balance picture reflects several factors, including the electoral cycle. Investment is particularly high in an election year, financed in many cases by financial surpluses accumulated in previous years or by borrowing. That means the investment spending weighs on this year’s primary expenditure even though the corresponding primary revenue may have been booked in earlier years. In the case of financing operations, the proceeds are classified as financial revenue and therefore do not enter the so-called “above-the-line” primary balance. The above-the-line result measures the difference between total revenue and expenditure after excluding financial revenue and spending. It is commonly used to assess governments’ fiscal effort before interest payments on debt. State officials argue, however, that the primary balance should not be the sole measure used to assess the fiscal position of subnational governments. The Central Bank also publishes a so-called “below-the-line” primary balance, calculated through governments’ financing requirements. Under that methodology, the states still posted a combined R$4.98 billion surplus from January through July this year. Monthly figures tell a less favorable story, however, said Manoel Pires, a researcher at Getulio Vargas Foundation’s Brazilian Institute of Economics, or FGV Ibre. The cumulative result was heavily influenced by January and February, when states posted primary surpluses of R$16.78 billion and R$10.74 billion, respectively. Since March, they have run deficits every month. The shortfalls deepened in June and July, reaching R$8.19 billion and R$6.88 billion, respectively. Over the 12 months through July, state governments posted a R$9.34 billion primary deficit, Central Bank data show. “The trend is for the numbers to worsen considerably in the second half,” said Pires, a former economic policy secretary at the Finance Ministry. He noted that the above-the-line figures contained in the LDOs are government estimates rather than final results. “So we could end up with a slightly better or slightly worse result. The actual number could be somewhat different. But what we can see is that almost everyone is budgeting for fiscal deterioration that, in aggregate, is significant.” Investment surge That outlook is consistent with the recent trajectory of state spending and investment, Pires said. A survey by Aequus Consultoria Econômica e Sistemas shows that state investment spending reached R$42.94 billion in the first half of 2026, a record for the period and above the previous peak of R$37.7 billion in 2022. Investment rose 40.6% in real terms from the same period of 2025. Financial investments, which can also include investment-related outlays, reached a record R$16.68 billion in the first six months of 2026, more than double the R$7.8 billion seen a year earlier. Over the same period, current expenditures rose 4.4% in real terms from 2025, led by a 5.3% increase in personnel spending. Current revenue also increased, but at a slower pace of 3.6%. Pires noted that expenditure growth also outpaced the economy. Brazil’s GDP expanded 1.9% in the first half from the same period of 2025, data from statistics agency IBGE show. At the same time, states have stepped up borrowing. Aequus data show revenue from credit operations totaled R$26.47 billion from January through June 2026, up 52.4% in real terms from the same period last year. The Aequus figures were adjusted for inflation through June using the IPCA. Smaller fiscal contribution The figures suggest there is little prospect of state governments making a meaningful contribution in 2026 — and probably in 2027 — to the fiscal effort of Brazil’s broader public sector, which includes the federal government, states and municipalities, Pires said. That is a sharp contrast with the period from the mid-1990s through around 2010, when states played an important role in the country’s overall primary balance and at one point accounted for nearly a third of the fiscal effort. “There is currently a system that works to finance spending. Credit operations contracted this year will generate disbursements next year. And Propag should also generate spending next year,” Pires said. By joining Propag, states should see their interest payments decline, he added, which tends to reduce the fiscal effort measured through the primary balance. “The tendency, at least in the short term, is for this process to continue.” Despite wide differences among states, Pires said the figures show that their finances deserve closer scrutiny. “There are all kinds of risks, the cushion is getting bigger, and there is an institutional framework that no longer operates in the same way it did when the Fiscal Responsibility Law [LRF] was approved. Federal relations are becoming increasingly important because the weight of states and municipalities in the country’s overall budget keeps growing.” Northeast investment needs Renata dos Santos, Alagoas’s finance secretary, said the debate over whether states should be expected to produce primary surpluses requires caution. Alagoas is projected to end 2026 with a R$1.09 billion primary deficit. Santos said the discussion is legitimate but must be viewed from “different perspectives.” “How can one demand that the Northeastern states, which are contributing so much investment to the country, stop doing that to help the primary balance? This is a region that needs these investments much more,” she said. In Alagoas, investment has been directed at needs that remain unmet in areas including healthcare, education and infrastructure, Santos said. “Fiscal responsibility, by itself, has no reason to exist. Fiscal responsibility is necessary in order to produce social responsibility,” she said. “If my debt is under control and my indicators for personnel expenses and operating costs are under control, then we are going to invest to improve conditions for the population.” Santos said state investment has produced tangible results, including improvements in education indicators and lower violence. She added that state primary balances naturally tend to come under pressure during election years. “The idea is to build cash reserves and organize the accounts with the electoral cycle in mind, without forgetting the obligations imposed by the Fiscal Responsibility Law.” Some states may ultimately post a slightly better result than currently projected once they receive resources from the Federative Equalization Fund, or FEF, which is linked to Propag, Santos said. Paraná spending In Paraná, a high level of investment also helps explain the projected R$8.56 billion primary deficit for 2026, said Luiz Paulo Budal, the state’s acting finance secretary. The state expects investment to reach a record this year, with R$10 billion in committed spending and about R$8.5 billion actually executed. “Because it is pursuing an expansionary fiscal policy focused on increasing investment, the state has been using its accumulated financial surpluses in a planned way to fund those investments. Despite its projected primary deficit, Paraná has the third-largest cash position among Brazilian states,” Budal said. Another factor weighing on Paraná’s primary result is the state Treasury’s contribution to cover the financial shortfall in the RPPS pension system. That shortfall rose from R$6.2 billion in 2022 to R$8.4 billion in 2025. “This is happening because of the increase in the number of retirements in Paraná,” Budal said. He also pointed to factors affecting both revenue and expenditure this year. In January, Paraná cut its IPVA vehicle ownership tax rate from 3.5% to 1.9%, giving the state what Budal described as the lowest general rate in Brazil. On the spending side, the state granted a general 5% annual pay adjustment in May. No such across-the-board adjustment had been granted in either 2024 or 2025, he said. Paraná also carried out several career restructuring measures, adding to expenditure this year. Budal said all the changes were implemented within the limits established by the Fiscal Responsibility Law. The state expects to retain its A+ Capag rating, the fiscal-capacity assessment issued by the National Treasury Secretariat that allows subnational governments to borrow with a federal guarantee. São Paulo shift São Paulo posted a R$24.94 billion primary surplus at the end of 2022. In 2023, the first year of Governor Tarcísio de Freitas’s administration, the surplus fell to R$6.16 billion. It rose to R$13.91 billion in 2024 before declining to R$8.72 billion in 2025. All figures are adjusted for inflation through August. For 2026, the São Paulo government’s latest estimate, included in the 2027 LDO, is for a surplus of just R$417 million. Aequus data show São Paulo invested R$4.15 billion in the first half of this year, up 77.6% in real terms from 2025 but still below the R$7.13 billion invested in the first six months of 2022. Financial investments, driven in part by contributions to public-private partnerships and the FEF, reached R$10.93 billion in the first half of 2026, more than three times the R$3.43 billion reached in the same period last year. Kinoshita said in the statement that 2022 marked “the end of a highly atypical period in the recent history of Brazilian federalism, when substantial federal aid, suspension of debt service, a legal ban on public-sector pay increases and a rare revenue cycle all coincided, at a time when gasoline, electricity and telecommunications were still taxed at 25%.” São Paulo’s participation in Propag changes the mix of revenue and expenditure that determines the primary balance, he said, replacing part of the financial spending associated with debt service with primary expenditure. “Other conditions being equal, the primary balance worsens and the nominal balance improves. The state’s debt, which was already declining before Propag, is likely to fall even further in the coming years. In other words, the outlook for fiscal sustainability improves, even with primary balances at a lower level.” São Paulo’s figures, Kinoshita added, show lower and cheaper debt, firm tax revenue, healthy primary results and personnel spending that remains stable as a share of revenue. “Observations about the contribution of subnational governments to the national primary balance should take into account that the primary results of the federal government and the states have different objectives and characteristics.”