The Chilean Congress signed the 2026 budget draft law, presented by the government of Gabriel Buric, after a tense legislative process. The Treasury that will govern next year in the South American country got the green light after the Joint Committee, a bicameral body, on Wednesday resolved discrepancies between the House of Representatives and the Senate regarding some budget items.
Lawmakers presented the 2026 budget when there were only three days left to meet their legal deadline for office, Saturday, November 29, and after dozens of changes to various provisions. What follows now is to be issued by the Executive.
Nicolas Grau, Minister of Finance, said it would be the ideal treasury to continue developing the country with financial and social responsibility. He pointed out, “In general, this is a positive budget. I believe that the approved budget law is better than the law that we entered into as a government, and this is of course a result of the work that has been accomplished here. It is better both in terms of the dimension related to social responsibility, because important progress has been made in the areas of health, work, housing and care.” The preparation of the 2026 budget included reallocation to achieve reductions worth $2.8 billion, or 0.8% of GDP.
In the final stage of the parliamentary debate, disagreements focused on four out of 33 articles that make up the treasury. Among them are those allocated to finance the National Youth Institute and the Gender Identity Support Program of the Ministry of Social Development and Family; Some sites of memory funded through the Cultural Portfolio, such as the 1367 and Salvador Allende Foundations or the Rapid Political Companies of Pisagua and the National Stadium. Funds for the Department of Security, created in January 2024, and Congress were also assessed. Almost all of them have been able to replenish their resources, with the exception of the Salvador Allende Foundation and the African Migrant Community. The changes made in the mixed committee of the House of Representatives and the Senate were approved in two sessions held on Wednesday night.
Minister Grau said: “We had a very complicated start to the discussion because the situation in the country is also full of difficult discussions. However, we had the possibility of reaching important agreements and throughout this process there was a lot of generosity from different political sectors, both those close to the government and the opposition as well.”
When President Buric presented the bill on national television on September 30, he promised to hand over the “regular house” to the next government, which will take office on March 11. Spending increased by 1.7%, which according to Buric is consistent with achieving the fiscal target they committed to, which is a deficit of 1.1%.
From the beginning, his proposal was questioned because, among other aspects, it did not include for the first time the so-called republican gloss, which meant freely available resources that should be implemented by the next government.
But it was in the legislative debate when he faced his toughest setback. It was October 29 when almost all the provisions were rejected by a special mixed commission, an unprecedented event in Chile. Afterwards, Grau admitted that he had underestimated the opposition and believed that the initial rejection of the 2026 budget was a “hoax” and before the executive lost a key stage in the debate. In an interview with TVNHe attributed the lawmakers’ behavior to a “more electoral decision,” given that the discussion took place two weeks before the presidential and parliamentary elections on November 16, and indicated that he hoped the “more dialogic stance” would resume after the first round.
Economist Matías Acevedo, former head of the Budget Directorate (Debris), warned in an interview with El Pais that the next president of Chile will have a tight checkbook or at least that will be the case during his first year in office and stressed that the treasury introduced by Buric has left some pressures.