UN at 80: Funding challenges at the United Nations

This briefing is part of the “UN at 80” series of short briefings from the House of Commons Library, taking stock of the UN’s 80-year existence, and looking ahead to what might be in store for the United Nations in future.

UN at 80: Funding challenges at the United Nations

As the United Nations marks its 80th anniversary in 2025, its operations are becoming constrained by a worsening liquidity crisis. UN officials, including Secretary-General António Guterres, have issued repeated warnings about the UN’s financial health. In October 2025, the Secretary-General warned that the UN faces a “race to bankruptcy,” stating that a failure to address the liquidity problem “could jeopardise critical elements” of the UN’s work.

The financial pressures are largely caused by a significant number of member states failing to pay their legally-binding contributions in full and on time.

The UN Funding vs UN System funding

The funding of the UN as an organisation is separate from the fundings of other organisations and agencies in the wider UN system. While the UN’s budget as an organisation is around $3.7 billion in 2025, the wider UN system had revenues totalling $67 billion in 2024 (which includes all aspects of the UN organisation’s budget).

Further details on how the wider UN agencies are funded, and the UK’s contributions to these, are covered in the Library briefing: UK funding to UN agencies and potential reforms in 2025.

How is the UN funded?

Member States contribute to the UN organisation financially in two main ways:

• Assessed (mandatory) contributions
• Voluntary contributions

Mandatory contributions

Mandatory contributions to the UN budget are made up of ‘assessments’. Assessments are made to Member States for the following UN budgets for 2025:

• Regular budget (around $3.7 billion)
• International tribunals ($43 million)
• Capital master plan
• Peacekeeping operations (totalling $5.4 billion)

The Capital Master Plan (CMP) is a separate project to renovate the United Nations Headquarters in New York, the costs of which are also shared among member states.

There are a number of peacekeeping operations that are funded separately, and are assessed per each peacekeeping force. The permanent five members of the Security Council (UK, US, France, China, and Russia) are expected to contribute a larger share to peacekeeping because of their “special responsibility for maintaining peace and security”.

Agencies and organisations within the wider UN system may also have mandatory contributions, depending on the founding treaty or instrument of each one. These assessments often follow the same formula as states main contributions to the UN, but these may vary depending on the organisation or agency.

Voluntary Contributions

Voluntary contributions are optional donations from governments and other entities. This funding is often used for specific purposes such as the UN's humanitarian and development agencies, and towards the funding of the wider UN system (PDF, p 42).

• How much do states contribute to the UN’s regular budget?

The scale of assessments for each member state can vary. In resolution 79/249 of 24 December 2024, the General Assembly adopted the scale of assessments for the contributions of member states to the regular budget of the United Nations for 2025, 2026, and 2027.

Assessments are calculated based on a formula for each state’s “capacity to pay,” which primarily uses a 3 and 6-year average of Gross National Income (GNI), with adjustments for debt and population. There is a 22% ‘ceiling’, meaning no state will pay more than 22% of the UN budget (currently applies to the United States). There is a 0.001% minimum payment, with a cap of 0.01% for least developed countries.

The UK’s contribution

According to the previous assessment, the UK previously paid 4.375% of the UN budget, and from 2025 will pay 3.991% of the budget.

Between 2013 and 2024, the UK provided an average of £630 million per year in contributions to the UN’s main institutional budget and its Department of Peace Operations (UN-DPO). This breaks down by year as shown in the chart below.

Source: UN System Chief Executives Board for Coordination, Revenue by Government donor, retrieved 27 October 2025. Converted to GBP using average exchange rates from ONS, time series AUSS.

This shows that the UK’s contributions to the UN’s main budgets peaked in 2019 before falling sharply in 2021, but have since increased again. Almost all of the variation in contributions to these budgets comes from voluntary contributions.

Other states

Assessments for the current year are available on the website of the UN Committee on Contributions, calculated in US dollars. For the UN’s budget running 1 January to 31 December 2025, the UN’s total regular budget amounted to $3.717 billion.

For example, the top contributing countries’ net share of the UN regular budget (after certain deductions) are:

Contributions to the United Nations Regular Budget

Position

State

Percentage Contribution

Amount (US dollars)

1

United States

22%

$820,385,984

2

China

20.004%

$679,786,970

3

Japan

6.93%

$235,499,085

4

Germany

5.692%

$193,428,686

5

UK

3.991%

$135,624,366

6

France

3.858%

$131,104,685

7

Italy

2.813%

$95,592,919

8

Canada

2.543%

$86,417,630

9

Republic of Korea

2.349%

$79,825,015

10

Russia

2.094%

$71,159,464

11

Australia

2.04%

$69,324,406

12

Spain

1.895%

$64,396,936

13

Brazil

1.411%

$47,949,381

14

The Netherlands

1.298%

$44,109,352

15

Saudi Arabia

1.217%

$41,356,766

16

Mexico

1.137%

$38,638,161

17

India

1.106%

$37,584,703

18

Switzerland

1.029%

$34,968,046

19

Poland

0.831%

$28,239,501

20

Sweden

0.822%

$27,933,658

Source: UN Committee on Contributions (2025 Figures)

Contributions received

States who have paid their contributions towards the UN regular budget are recorded on each year’s Honour Roll, which tracks the contributions received so far and also contains information on how many states have paid in each month.

States who do not pay their assessed contributions, according to Article 19 of the UN Charter, may lose their vote if their arrears amount to two years or more of contributions due. There are some states currently in this position,

Some states may retain their General Assembly vote if they can show that conditions beyond its control contributed to this inability to pay.

The UN’s cash crisis

The United Nations has been facing a severe and worsening cash liquidity crisis, underpinned mainly by some member states not paying their agreed contributions in full or on time.

As of 15 October 2025, 141 Member States had paid their regular budget assessments in full. But there are some states in significant arrears to the UN. As of 30 September 2025, $1.8 billion was still owed to the UN for the 2025 financial year. (PDF). The top three states still owing to the UN by October 2025 are all permanent members of the UN Security Council:

• The US had $1.495 billion unpaid
• China had $192 million unpaid
• Russia had $72 million unpaid

The rest of the shortfall is made up of unpaid contributions from Venezuela, Mexico, Argentina, and other smaller states.

For peacekeeping operations, the figures are even higher – according to the Secretary-General’s Report on the UN’s Financial Situation (PDF, para 11), as of 30 September 2025, the unpaid amount for peacekeeping operations was around $3.7 billion.

While the US, under the Trump administration, has withdrawn funding from specific UN agencies, part of the reason behind its arrears to the UN’s regular budget is the differences between the US and UN fiscal years. According to the Congressional Research Service, the US accumulates arears until it pays in the final months of the fiscal year, but also because the US withholds funds from UN entities, and pays some assessments deferred by one year.

Russia and China have not explicitly explained their more recent change in paying their contributions later, but some commentators allege this may be a strategic move to influence funding directions and priorities, including on human rights issues and investigations.

Consequences of the cash shortfalls

The UN Secretary-General has proposed a 15% reduced budged for 2026, dropping from $3.7 billion to £3.2 billion. He said that the liquidity crisis is threatening to undermine core operations of the UN, and a 18.8% cut in staffing, and warned that it could “lead to a collapse of the regular functioning of our Organisation.”

In May 2025, UN officials had warned that the crisis “risks eroding the UN’s credibility and its capacity to fulfil mandates entrusted to it by Member States.”

UN80 Initiative

Alongside a wider set of strategic reforms, the UN80 initiative seeks to address some of the UN’s funding issues through identifying inefficiencies in the organisation and implementing operational improvements. While the initiative involves financial and efficiency improvements, the wider project is designed to also ensure that the UN is fit for purpose in the 21st century.

The wider role of the UN80 initiative, which will be set out in a forthcoming Library briefing on UN reform, covers three key workstreams:

• Finding efficiencies and improvements in the management and operation of the UN
• Reviewing 4,000 mandates and how they are implemented to streamline how mandates are delivered and reduce duplication
• Assessing structural changes to the UN and the wider UN System

In June 2025, the team behind the initiative stressed the need for change, taking stock of some key statistics on the UN’s operational effectiveness:

• Since its inception, the UN has adopted over 40,000 mandates, delivered by over 140 different entities.
• The UN Secretariat has serviced over 400 intergovernmental organisations.
• The Secretariat also provides support for 27,000 meetings per year, processing an average of 2,300 pages of documents per day – costing $360 million annually.

The UN Secretary-General’s announcement of a reduced UN budget, alongside staffing cuts and restructures, are part of the initial proposals for the first workstream of UN80.

Further reading and commentary

• UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks to the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) of the General Assembly, 17 October 2025
• UN80 Initiative, Workstream 2, “Mandate implementation review”, Report of the Secretary-General,6 August 2025, UN Doc A/80/318
• UN80 Initiative Workstream 3: Changing Structures and Realigning Programmes, “Shifting Paradigms: United to Deliver”, Report of the Secretary-General, 22 September 2025, UN Doc A/80/392

• Hosung Ahn, “Responding to the Pressing Financial Needs of the United Nations”, EJIL: Talk!, 1 October 2025
• Richard Turner, “Staff reflections on UN80”, UNToday, 1 October 2025
• Eugene Chen, “UN80: The Secretary-General’s Revised Budget Will Do More Harm Than Good”, IPI Global Observatory, 30 September 2025
• Ronny Patz, “Reforming the UN during a financial crisis: a foreseeable failure to align money, mandates, and majorities?” Global Governance Institute, 9 July 2025

• Commons Library Collection: The UN at 80