Own resources of the EU budget

In accordance with Article 310 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU) the EU’s annual expenditure may not exceed its revenue, i.e. the EU operates a balanced budget and cannot run a deficit. The GNI-based resource plays the budget-balancing role, financing the annual expenditure not covered by the other types of own resources and revenue. Its call rate therefore changes every year, so that overall revenue matches the agreed level of payments. Despite being introduced as a residual element, the GNI-based resource has over time become the own resource with the largest share in the overall mix (see Figure 1 for an illustration of the share of each own resource in the 2007-2024 period).