Contributions do not cover expenses
According to calculations made by the Court of Accounts, in 2025, compared to 2018, the growth rate of expenses incurred by the social insurance budget (233.4%) exceeded the growth rate of its own revenues (220.7%) by 12.7 percentage points.
Financial pressure on the system is growing despite the fact that the number of insured persons increased by 18.4 thousand, compared to last year, and reached more than 842 thousand. And the payroll and related contributions increased by 12.3 billion lei and 3.2 billion lei, respectively.
Financial sustainability is traditionally “strengthened” by transfers from the state budget, which last year amounted to 4.1 billion lei (down from the previous two years). Dependence is not entirely free: when there are temporary interruptions in the receipt of funds from contributions, and pensions and allowances need to be paid on time, we have to borrow.
Last year, according to the Court of Accounts, the National Social Insurance Fund (CNSS) entered into 4 loan agreements with the state budget for 1.5 billion lei, which were repaid by the end of the year.
It is more and more difficult to avoid insolvency for the CNSS, as the executor of the social insurance budget obligations, although it managed to reach even a small surplus at the end of last year.
The total income amounted to 49.2 billion lei (99.6% realized). The lion’s share of revenues (57.1%) was accumulated from compulsory contributions paid by employers in the amount of 27.8 billion lei. Pensions and social benefits received 48.5 billion lei (more than 98% of total expenditures), which is 6.3 billion lei more than in 2024.
Missed opportunities
The old diseases of narrowing the insurance field for collecting contributions haunt the social insurance budget already as chronic ones: employers’ negligence, debts, bankruptcy of companies and various schemes of avoiding payments to the budget.
“The tax service did not take sufficient measures, which caused the budget to under-receive 14.2 million lei in 2025,” the report says.
The number of insolvent companies rose to 1,631 units, while their total debt to the BHCS reached 499.5 million lei.
There are still problems with the timely registration and accounting of the payers of contributions from the justice sector (lawyers, notaries). The arrears for this category increased to 7.4 million lei by the end of 2025, as the measures applied by the tax authorities require the submission of only general income declarations.
According to the auditors, the State Tax Service of Moldova in 2023-2025, due to low efficiency of debt collection and incomplete application of enforcement measures, allowed writing off unclaimed debts, which resulted in a significant shortfall of funds for the budget (the total amount of debts canceled in three years exceeded 458.5 million lei). At the same time, only 1.2 million lei was collected in 2025, while bad debts of economic agents amounting to 25.4 million lei were canceled.
“Employers do not comply with the legal provisions regarding the calculation of contributions in the case of part-time or reduced employment workers. Monthly contributions were reduced for about 11 thousand people by declaring wages below the minimum wage in the country. The measures taken by the STS were insufficient, which resulted in a 14.2 million lei shortfall in 2025,” the year-end report says.
Employers save money on employees
Reduction of the insurance period, denial of benefits for temporary disability, benefits for families with children and other violations of the rights of Moldovan citizens to social protection are just a few of the typical ways of “legal” application of tax loopholes that help to minimize the burden on the wage funds of enterprises. Part-time employment and the use of civil law contracts are perhaps the most popular.
“Some citizens have their insurance record for accrual of retirement pension reduced by periods from 1 to 9 years due to the negligence of employers. And the use of incorrect data on the rate of individual contributions directly affects the correct calculation of pensions and, accordingly, budget expenditures. Evaluation of a sample of more than 220,000 records revealed deviations from the statutory rate below or above the statutory level. There is no functional mechanism for correcting these incorrect records, and the system has erroneous information for a long time,” the auditors say.
Then it all affects the calculation of pensions and social benefits. People encounter it either accidentally or already at the time of appointment and start “looking for ends” and contesting it. The ambiguity of the provisions of normative acts and ignorance of the beneficiaries of the criteria for determining or recalculating benefits (especially pensions) lead to numerous appeals.
In 2025, the number of disputes increased by more than 1,600 cases! And this situation requires urgent intervention of the authorities, the Accounts Chamber is alarmed.
And someone has arrived…
More than 24 thousand people received social assistance in 2025 for the amount of 479,1 million lei. After only 3 inspections, 10.6 million lei (42% of the audited amount) were found to have been improperly granted, of which 1.1 million lei were accrued due to administrative errors.
The recovery rate remains low: out of the identified erroneous social assistance payments amounting to MDL 50.1 million, only MDL 8.8 million (17.5%) were recovered between 2019 and 2025.
As for compensations for energy costs during the cold season, “the process remains fragmented and shows inconsistencies in data,” the auditors state.
The payments made through the NCSS in 2025 for more than 600 thousand beneficiaries, amounting to 2.8 billion lei, are full of irregularities due to incorrect data in the information system. Such as, for example, the allocation of compensations to 180 deceased persons, amounting to 158.1 thousand lei.
Now – surplus
Last year, the budget parameters were adjusted three times, due to changes in the macroeconomic indicators and the indexation of social payments. In 2026, the launch of new programs or the expansion of the current ones will also affect the amendments to the budget law. So far, social budget revenues outpace expenditures.
According to the operational data of the NCSS, in the first four months of 2026, the revenues of Moldova’s state social insurance budget (BASS) amounted to 19,158.4 million lei (37.2% of the annual plan), while expenditures amounted to 17,798.4 million lei (34.6% of the plan). This ensured a current budget surplus of 1,360.0 million lei.
Total expenditures grew by 6% (+1,015.3 million lei) YoY. The burden on the expenditure side traditionally increased after the planned indexation of pensions and allowances by 6.84%, effective April 1, 2026.
Mandatory social insurance contributions amounted to 9,522.1 million lei (30.4% of the annual plan), showing an increase of 10% y-o-y. Transfers from the state budget amounted to 9,302.0 million lei, of which 6,282.0 million lei were allocated for the payment of benefits and social security, while 3,020.0 million lei were used to cover the internal deficit of the fund’s own revenues.
