---
ticker: "KRFISCAL"
title: "South Korea Consolidated Fiscal Balance"
unit: "bil. KRW"
frequency: "Monthly"
source: "Copeland (1949); Stone (1966)"
release: "Updated Monthly"
category: "Government Finance"
country: "KR"
language: "en"
canonical: "https://kred.dev/en/series/KRFISCAL"
license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/"
latest_value: -20076.00
latest_date: "2026-07-01"
first_date: "2000-01-01"
observations_total: 319
observations_shown: 120
---

# South Korea Consolidated Fiscal Balance

## Overview

A year of revenue net of expenditure and net lending, showing whether the budget runs a surplus or deficit.

## Key Figures

|  | Value | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Latest | -20076.00 | 2026-07-01 |
| Change from previous | +23825.00 | 2026-06-01 |
| Change over one year | +37412.00 | 2025-07-01 |
| Highest on record | 42915.00 | 2007-11-01 |
| Lowest on record | -89971.00 | 2020-06-01 |
| Period covered | 2000-01-01 – 2026-07-01 |  |
| Observations | 319 |  |

## Recent observations

| Date | Value | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2016-08-01 | 15757.00 | +7705.00 |
| 2016-09-01 | 8186.00 | -7571.00 |
| 2016-10-01 | 17254.00 | +9068.00 |
| 2016-11-01 | 21010.00 | +3756.00 |
| 2016-12-01 | 16910.00 | -4100.00 |
| 2017-01-01 | 14851.00 | -2059.00 |
| 2017-02-01 | 4008.00 | -10843.00 |
| 2017-03-01 | -3918.00 | -7926.00 |
| 2017-04-01 | 9070.00 | +12988.00 |
| 2017-05-01 | 11291.00 | +2221.00 |
| 2017-06-01 | -2162.00 | -13453.00 |
| 2017-07-01 | 16089.00 | +18251.00 |
| 2017-08-01 | 17381.00 | +1292.00 |
| 2017-09-01 | 12656.00 | -4725.00 |
| 2017-10-01 | 27225.00 | +14569.00 |
| 2017-11-01 | 29177.00 | +1952.00 |
| 2017-12-01 | 24029.00 | -5148.00 |
| 2018-01-01 | 15048.00 | -8981.00 |
| 2018-02-01 | 877.00 | -14171.00 |
| 2018-03-01 | -1766.00 | -2643.00 |
| 2018-04-01 | 244.00 | +2010.00 |
| 2018-05-01 | 8670.00 | +8426.00 |
| 2018-06-01 | -3520.00 | -12190.00 |
| 2018-07-01 | 9220.00 | +12740.00 |
| 2018-08-01 | 15993.00 | +6773.00 |
| 2018-09-01 | 14031.00 | -1962.00 |
| 2018-10-01 | 28653.00 | +14622.00 |
| 2018-11-01 | 37409.00 | +8756.00 |
| 2018-12-01 | 31163.00 | -6246.00 |
| 2019-01-01 | 6893.00 | -24270.00 |
| 2019-02-01 | -11804.00 | -18697.00 |
| 2019-03-01 | -17321.00 | -5517.00 |
| 2019-04-01 | -25893.00 | -8572.00 |
| 2019-05-01 | -19104.00 | +6789.00 |
| 2019-06-01 | -38492.00 | -19388.00 |
| 2019-07-01 | -24289.00 | +14203.00 |
| 2019-08-01 | -22340.00 | +1949.00 |
| 2019-09-01 | -26547.00 | -4207.00 |
| 2019-10-01 | -11394.00 | +15153.00 |
| 2019-11-01 | -7906.00 | +3488.00 |
| 2019-12-01 | -11997.00 | -4091.00 |
| 2020-01-01 | 306.00 | +12303.00 |
| 2020-02-01 | -26249.00 | -26555.00 |
| 2020-03-01 | -45292.00 | -19043.00 |
| 2020-04-01 | -43345.00 | +1947.00 |
| 2020-05-01 | -61279.00 | -17934.00 |
| 2020-06-01 | -89971.00 | -28692.00 |
| 2020-07-01 | -75607.00 | +14364.00 |
| 2020-08-01 | -70888.00 | +4719.00 |
| 2020-09-01 | -80461.00 | -9573.00 |
| 2020-10-01 | -58956.00 | +21505.00 |
| 2020-11-01 | -63264.00 | -4308.00 |
| 2020-12-01 | -71153.00 | -7889.00 |
| 2021-01-01 | 3442.00 | +74595.00 |
| 2021-02-01 | -12694.00 | -16136.00 |
| 2021-03-01 | -30104.00 | -17410.00 |
| 2021-04-01 | -16347.00 | +13757.00 |
| 2021-05-01 | -20477.00 | -4130.00 |
| 2021-06-01 | -47188.00 | -26711.00 |
| 2021-07-01 | -20709.00 | +26479.00 |
| 2021-08-01 | -29802.00 | -9093.00 |
| 2021-09-01 | -29648.00 | +154.00 |
| 2021-10-01 | -19317.00 | +10331.00 |
| 2021-11-01 | -22366.00 | -3049.00 |
| 2021-12-01 | -30494.00 | -8128.00 |
| 2022-01-01 | 8993.00 | +39487.00 |
| 2022-02-01 | -15069.00 | -24062.00 |
| 2022-03-01 | -33145.00 | -18076.00 |
| 2022-04-01 | -21317.00 | +11828.00 |
| 2022-05-01 | -48889.00 | -27572.00 |
| 2022-06-01 | -75011.00 | -26122.00 |
| 2022-07-01 | -56339.00 | +18672.00 |
| 2022-08-01 | -50639.00 | +5700.00 |
| 2022-09-01 | -52719.00 | -2080.00 |
| 2022-10-01 | -43058.00 | +9661.00 |
| 2022-11-01 | -50848.00 | -7790.00 |
| 2022-12-01 | -64571.00 | -13723.00 |
| 2023-01-01 | 10278.00 | +74849.00 |
| 2023-02-01 | -24574.00 | -34852.00 |
| 2023-03-01 | -41425.00 | -16851.00 |
| 2023-04-01 | -28984.00 | +12441.00 |
| 2023-05-01 | -30789.00 | -1805.00 |
| 2023-06-01 | -55444.00 | -24655.00 |
| 2023-07-01 | -37887.00 | +17557.00 |
| 2023-08-01 | -31325.00 | +6562.00 |
| 2023-09-01 | -31154.00 | +171.00 |
| 2023-10-01 | -10444.00 | +20710.00 |
| 2023-11-01 | -19455.00 | -9011.00 |
| 2023-12-01 | -36768.00 | -17313.00 |
| 2024-01-01 | 11237.00 | +48005.00 |
| 2024-02-01 | -29902.00 | -41139.00 |
| 2024-03-01 | -64741.00 | -34839.00 |
| 2024-04-01 | -47082.00 | +17659.00 |
| 2024-05-01 | -52157.00 | -5075.00 |
| 2024-06-01 | -75970.00 | -23813.00 |
| 2024-07-01 | -52343.00 | +23627.00 |
| 2024-08-01 | -50354.00 | +1989.00 |
| 2024-09-01 | -52888.00 | -2534.00 |
| 2024-10-01 | -30464.00 | +22424.00 |
| 2024-11-01 | -28180.00 | +2284.00 |
| 2024-12-01 | -43521.00 | -15341.00 |
| 2025-01-01 | 13536.00 | +57057.00 |
| 2025-02-01 | -13675.00 | -27211.00 |
| 2025-03-01 | -50034.00 | -36359.00 |
| 2025-04-01 | -31238.00 | +18796.00 |
| 2025-05-01 | -35502.00 | -4264.00 |
| 2025-06-01 | -68595.00 | -33093.00 |
| 2025-07-01 | -57488.00 | +11107.00 |
| 2025-08-01 | -53733.00 | +3755.00 |
| 2025-09-01 | -63485.00 | -9752.00 |
| 2025-10-01 | -43978.00 | +19507.00 |
| 2025-11-01 | -43259.00 | +719.00 |
| 2025-12-01 | -46677.00 | -3418.00 |
| 2026-01-01 | 14263.00 | +60940.00 |
| 2026-02-01 | -7086.00 | -21349.00 |
| 2026-03-01 | -22786.00 | -15700.00 |
| 2026-04-01 | -13224.00 | +9562.00 |
| 2026-05-01 | -23383.00 | -10159.00 |
| 2026-06-01 | -43901.00 | -20518.00 |
| 2026-07-01 | -20076.00 | +23825.00 |

## Definition

The Korean government-finance indicators KRGDEBT and KRFISCAL are raw series recorded as reported without any transformation, the won magnitudes of the central government's outstanding obligations and of its consolidated budgetary position. KRGDEBT is the year-end stock of central government debt, the D1 aggregate, expressed in trillions of won, while KRFISCAL is the consolidated fiscal balance, the net of total revenue over total expenditure and net lending, expressed in billions of won and compiled as a within-year cumulative flow that resets at the start of each year.

Both quantities are financial-accounts magnitudes in the lineage of moneyflows accounting, where every liability of the government sector is entered against the matching claim of its holders (Copeland 1949). The debt stock sits in the sectoral balance sheets built to measure financial-asset and liability positions (Goldsmith, Lipsey, and Mendelson 1963), and the balance is the government sector's net position in the financial account of the integrated social-accounting system (Stone 1966), a framework whose national-accounting antecedents fix how public revenue and outlay are classified (Meade and Stone 1941; Kuznets 1941).

The measurement of governmental activity as a distinct account within the national totals is a long-standing construction (Fabricant 1940; Stone 1947), and the debt itself is a claim whose service cost is the interest that equates present and future public income (Fisher 1930). Because the balance is a flow and the debt a stock, the two are linked through the accounting identity that cumulates deficits into the outstanding liability (Obstfeld and Rogoff 1995), and the resulting government position belongs to the family of national balance-sheet measures (Lane and Milesi-Ferretti 2001).

The debt-to-activity ratio implied by the stock is a structural gauge whose rapid rise has repeatedly accompanied macrofinancial strain in the long-run record (Schularick and Taylor 2012). Neither series carries a seasonal adjustment, and each is recorded here exactly as compiled, the debt at annual frequency and the balance at monthly frequency (Dawson 1996).

## Methodology

KRED applies no transformation to KRGDEBT or KRFISCAL, neither deflating, re-scaling, smoothing, annualizing, nor seasonally adjusting them, so each published number is the compiled figure exactly as measured, the debt in trillions of won and the balance in billions of won. The consolidated balance is reproduced on its native cumulative year-to-date basis, and it is not decomposed into monthly increments.

The measurement basis is the flow-of-funds framework, first founded as moneyflows accounting (Copeland 1949) and later implemented as a full empirical system (Copeland 1952), which records every governmental instrument simultaneously as a liability of the public sector and a claim of its holders under quadruple-entry bookkeeping. The government account is read from the financial account of the integrated social-accounting system (Stone 1966), and the debt stock is tabulated within the year-by-year national balance sheets (Goldsmith, Lipsey, and Mendelson 1963), while the classification of public revenue and outlay follows the national-accounting construction of the government sector (Meade and Stone 1941; Stone 1947).

The practitioner conventions for sectoring institutional units and classifying instruments follow the handbook treatment (Dawson 1996), and the delineation of the government as a measured account rests on the early empirical work on public activity (Fabricant 1940; Kuznets 1941). The debt figure is an end-of-period balance and the fiscal figure an accumulated within-year flow, and in every case the series exists as an accounting-consistent quantity rather than a modelled one (Fisher 1930).

The two are joined by the intertemporal accounting identity under which the sequence of balances cumulates into the outstanding stock (Obstfeld and Rogoff 1995), and the same construction underlies the treatment of the national accounts as an internally consistent system (Frisch 1936).

## Applications in Economics

The two government-finance series are watched as the primary gauges of the fiscal stance and of its accumulated legacy, since the balance measures the current draw of the public sector on national saving and the debt measures the stock of claims that draw has built up. The debt is a claim whose service absorbs future public income, which links its level to the intertemporal choices of the fiscal authority (Fisher 1930). The path of the two is joined by the budget-constraint identity under which deficits cumulate into the outstanding liability (Obstfeld and Rogoff 1995), so the sustainability question is read jointly rather than from either series alone.

The fiscal balance is strongly cyclical, widening in downturns and narrowing in expansions as revenue and outlay respond to activity, a co-movement in the tradition of business-cycle measurement (Burns and Mitchell 1946). Because the debt-to-activity ratio has repeatedly risen alongside macrofinancial strain in the long-run record (Schularick and Taylor 2012; Jordà, Schularick, and Taylor 2017), the stock is a structural indicator beyond its accounting role.

The measurement of the government as a distinct account makes the sectoral draw a direct object of analysis (Fabricant 1940; Kuznets 1941), and the national-accounting frame situates public revenue and outlay within the economy-wide circular flow (Stone, Champernowne, and Meade 1942). Read against activity, the balance measures the reallocation of purchasing power across time through the public budget rather than the private one.

Gross government positions carry information beyond what the net balance reveals (Obstfeld 2012), and elevated public liabilities condition the funding environment of the subsequent cycle (Lane and Milesi-Ferretti 2018). The empirical link between fiscal quantities and the level of interest rates further ties the two series to the broader macro-financial setting (Hamilton 1996).

## Applications in Financial Markets

For market participants the two government-finance series are the macro anchor for pricing sovereign duration and for sizing the supply against which government paper is issued. The debt stock sets the quantity of claims outstanding, whose price sensitivity to yield moves is governed by the duration relation between a bond's yield and the weighted term of its cash flows (Macaulay 1938; Fisher and Weil 1971), and the term structure that prices those claims carries the compensation for deferring public income (Hicks 1939).

The consolidated balance drives the near-term issuance calendar, and its cumulative year-to-date profile shapes the seasonal pattern of cash and financing needs that desks track when positioning in government paper (Bartolini, Bertola, and Prati 2002; Bindseil 2004). Because scarce issues can trade at a premium in funding markets, the composition of the outstanding stock also matters for pricing (Duffie 1996).

Debt linked to crisis frequency raises the probability of disorderly adjustment and informs the credit and term spreads at which sovereign and related exposures clear (Schularick and Taylor 2012; Jordà, Schularick, and Taylor 2017). Gross positions must be read with attention to valuation and measurement, cautions raised by the position-measurement and return-measurement literature (Gourinchas and Rey 2007a; Curcuru, Dvorak, and Warnock 2008), and this caveat generalizes to all gross public positions (Obstfeld 2012).

## Statistical Tests

KRFISCAL is a not-seasonally-adjusted consolidated fiscal balance compiled as a within-year cumulative flow that resets at the start of each year, and because the balance takes negative values the logarithm is undefined, so the appropriate statistical object is the level. The sample is 316 monthly observations spanning 2000-01 to 2026-04, and the unit-root triplet is fitted on the level with a constant and trend.

The augmented Dickey-Fuller regression of Dickey and Fuller (1979), in the lag-augmented form of Said and Dickey (1984), does not reject the unit root at p = 0.054, and the stationarity-null test rejects trend stationarity at p < 0.01 (Kwiatkowski et al. 1992), so the augmented Dickey-Fuller and KPSS legs concur on a non-stationary reading. The nonparametric test of Phillips and Perron (1988) is the sole dissenter, rejecting the unit root at p = 0.000, which reflects the documented Phillips-Perron over-rejection toward spurious stationarity under near-unit moving-average errors rather than independent evidence of stationarity (Ng and Perron 2001), so no clean order of integration is assigned. The GLS-detrended escalation of Elliott, Rothenberg, and Stock (1996) is the reserved confirmation tool for such ambiguous readings.

Because the level is not a clean stationary object, the portmanteau and the break search are run on its first difference, since a level portmanteau on a persistent balance reads mechanical near-unit autocorrelation and a level mean-break search spuriously segments the series (Perron 1989; Hamilton 2018; Bai and Perron 1998). The portmanteau statistic of Ljung and Box (1978), refining the form of Box and Pierce (1970), rejects the white-noise null on the differenced series, with Q = 492.43 at lag 12 and Q = 844.37 at lag 24, both at p = 0.000. The multiple-break procedure computed by the dynamic-programming algorithm of Bai and Perron (2003) finds no break in the mean of the differenced series.

Seasonal tests are appropriate on this unadjusted monthly series, and the cumulative year-to-date construction imprints a strong within-year pattern as the balance accumulates from a January reset toward a December total. The seasonal-unit-root test of Hylleberg et al. (1990), with the monthly mechanics of Beaulieu and Miron (1993), rejects unit roots at the seasonal frequencies with F = 84.48, while the seasonal dummies are jointly significant with F = 17.02 at p = 0.000, so the seasonality is present and deterministic rather than stochastic. The seasonal portmanteau likewise rejects white noise at the seasonal lags on the differenced series at p = 0.000. This deterministic within-year pattern, imprinted by the cumulative accumulation from a January reset, is consistent with the stationary-seasonality reading of Canova and Hansen (1995) and with the strongly seasonal character of an unadjusted cumulative fiscal series (Ghysels and Osborn 2001).

## Frequently Asked Questions

### What do the government debt and fiscal balance series report?

Central government debt and the consolidated fiscal balance, together with total government revenue, total expenditure and tax receipts, each carried as published.

### Why can government debt and the fiscal balance not be compared directly?

Debt is a year-end stock while the balance and the revenue and expenditure series are flows over a period. Placing the two on one axis or comparing them directly is the most common error with these figures.

### Does Korean central government debt cover the whole public sector?

No. The scope is central government as published, so local government and public corporations are excluded, and broader public sector aggregates are compiled on different definitions and are not carried here.