The Lebanese Parliament recently ratified a balanced budget law for the year 2026 targeting revenues and expenditures of LBP 538.42 trillion (around $6.01 billion) each, up by 20.93% from year 2025’s budget law figures of LBP 445.21 trillion (around $4.97 billion). It is worth noting that in accordance with the practice established in recent years, the 2026 budget law does not include an advance to Eléctricité du Liban (EDL) after the latter revised its tariffs to stand above production costs. The budget suggests a high contribution from tax revenues of LBP 439.61 trillion, representing 81.65% of total revenues, with non-tax revenues (LBP 98.80 trillion) expected to represent 18.35% of target revenues. Delving into details, levies on goods and services (LBP 255.79 trillion vs LBP 203.55 trillion in the 2025 budget law) are budgeted to be the major contributor (47.51%) to total revenues, with levies on international trade (LBP 73.91 trillion vs LBP 73.39 trillion in the 2025 budget law) and taxes on properties (LBP 36.01 trillion vs LBP 29.50 trillion in the 2025 budget law) accounting for 13.73% and 6.69% of total revenues respectively. It is worth noting, in this perspective, that non-tax revenues mainly represent revenues from state owned enterprises such as Casino du Liban, Lebanese ports, the Rafik Hariri Beirut International Airport and the telecom sector among others. The law raises several penalties by a factor of 25 times while also increasing the reporting obligations related to Ultimate Beneficial Ownership “UBO” (a step that can aid in combatting money laundering and adhering to international best practices), whereby concerned individuals must notify relevant tax authorities of any changes in UBO within one month (compared to two months previously) of the date of change, while simultaneously hiking the fees related to non-compliance with said requirements. The law also imposes fees on foreign trucks that cross the Lebanese territory for international transport purposes, except for trucks belonging to countries that exempt Lebanon from said fees according to bilateral trade agreements. The law increases the percentage fee allocated to sellers of fiscal stamps to 7% (from 5% previously) of the value of the stamp, in order to incentivize them to sell stamps at their nominal value, while also setting the minimum daily meal allowance for private sector employees at LBP 300,000. In addition, the law stipulates that the customs administration must levy a 1.5% charge on every import transaction, with the amount considered as an advance on the importer’s income tax. Always on the revenues front, several fees associated with transactions with the Directorate of General Security (including the fees related to residencies for those holding work permits) were increased. The law also levied a 17% “exceptional” tax on profits realized on Sayrafa transactions that exceeded $100,000. Finally, the law hiked the penalty imposed on tourism companies that organize foreign groups’ tours for each person under their responsibility who fails to depart to LBP 180 million (from LBP 3 million previously).

On the expenditures front, social benefits are expected to account for over one-quarter (27.25%) of total budgeted expenditures, followed by salaries & remunerations (23.66%) and transfers (12.46%; part of which is geared towards salaries and transfers to non-profit organizations). Other significant expenditure items include capital expenditures (11.96%) mainly in the form of governmental expropriations, and administrative expenses (10.02%).

Furthermore, the largest portion of budgeted expenditures was allocated to the Ministry of National Defense ($1.14 billion; 18.9%), followed closely by shared expenditures ($1.13 billion, 18.8%), the Ministry of Interior and Municipalities ($0.64 billion, 10.6%) and the Ministry of Education and Higher Education ($0.61 billion, 10.2%) only to name a few. This is further reflected by the below table: