State budget 2025 to amend salaries for civil and judicial employees

As part of the previous government's efforts to harmonize salaries, the upcoming budget will include amendments to the salaries of all civil service and judicial employees.

While presenting the state budget for 2025 today, Minister of Finance Moosa Zameer said that MVR 500 million has been allocated for this purpose.

“The salaries of all other employees will be amended in 2026,” Zameer added.

Former President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih's administration increased the salaries of teachers, lecturers, health workers, police, and Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) personnel in 2022 as part of its salary equalization efforts.

Following these changes, then Minister of Finance Dr Mohamed Shafeeq said in June that 46 percent of the salaries across government institutions had been adjusted.

Currently, there are 30,165 employees in the civil service. This year's budget allocated MVR 12 billion for employee salaries, while next year's budget allocates a total of MVR 13.9 billion for salaries and allowances.

The government has proposed a record budget of MVR 56.6 billion for the upcoming year, an increase of MVR 1.8 billion compared to the supplementary budget for this year.

Of this total, expenditure is estimated at MVR 49.2 billion, with recurrent expenditure at MVR 35.9 billion and capital expenditure at MVR 13.3 billion.

Additionally, the government is expected to spend MVR 3.9 billion next year to repay debt.

Revenue and grants for the next year are projected to total USD 39.8 billion, which includes USD 4.9 billion from revenue-raising measures. This increase is expected from heightened tobacco tax, airport tax, TGST, and green tax.

With these fiscal reforms, the budget deficit is anticipated to be MVR 9.4 billion next year, marking the lowest deficit in recent history.