This special feature examines the level and structure of non-tax revenues in 2023 for 22 Latin American and Caribbean countries. It also examines changes in the level and structure of non-tax revenues between 2019 and 2023 and compares non-tax revenues in the LAC region with those reported in other regions to the Global Revenue Statistics initiative.
Revenue Statistics in Latin America and the Caribbean 2025
Abstract
Revenue Statistics in Latin America and the Caribbean primarily provides statistics on tax revenues. However, taxes are not the only source of government revenues; to obtain a complete picture of public finances in any country, it is necessary to look beyond taxation. This is especially true for countries that obtain substantial revenues in the form of royalties from natural resources, for example.
Tax revenues represent a permanent stream of resources that can be deployed to finance sustainable development. Non-tax revenues, in comparison, are often volatile and stem from activities that are potentially finite in nature, such as the exploitation of non-renewable natural resources. However, non-tax revenues can be harnessed to provide long-term financing streams that can complement domestic resource mobilisation efforts.
This chapter represents an initial attempt by the Revenue Statistics in Latin America and the Caribbean initiative to collect, classify and analyse non-tax revenues in the LAC region. It complements Chapter 31 of this publication, which examines fiscal revenues from non-renewable oil and mineral resources in the region.
Non-tax revenues are defined as government revenues that do not meet the OECD definition of “tax”, which is confined to compulsory unrequited payments to the general government or to a supranational authority. Data on non-tax revenues are often less detailed and complete than tax revenue data; revenue data in this chapter are indicative in light of certain methodological issues (see Box 2.1). Annex 2.A provides a detailed description of the non-tax revenue categories examined in this chapter and their classification criteria.
The categories of non-tax revenue studied in this chapter are as follows:
Grants from foreign governments or international organisations (budget aid, food aid, capital transfers, current transfers, project grants, programme grants, international debt relief, etc.);
Rents and royalties (such as oil or mining royalties);
Other property income (interest, dividends and other returns on government investment);
Sales of goods and services (which include some administrative fees);
Fines and penalties (including fines and penalties due to tax violations);
Miscellaneous and unidentified revenues (non-tax revenues that cannot be classified according to the other categories).
This chapter analyses data on non-tax revenues for 22 of the 26 LAC countries covered in the publication, excluding the four OECD member countries (Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and Mexico).2 The non-tax revenue indicators are derived at the central government level3 and thus are not directly comparable with the indicators of tax revenues shown in Chapter 1, which are compiled at the general government level. This should be borne in mind when considering the comparisons drawn in this chapter between trends in tax and non-tax revenues.
The scope of non-tax revenues shown in this chapter is broader than is shown in Chapter 3, which focuses only on royalties, dividends and interest from non-renewable oil and mineral resources. It is also broader than the non-tax component of the Equivalent Fiscal Pressure (EFP)4 indicator presented in the 2024 edition of this report (OECD et al., 2024[1]), which includes royalties, dividends and interest from the exploitation of both renewable and non-renewable natural resources. Meanwhile, another component of the EFP, mandatory private social security contributions, falls outside the definition of tax and non-tax revenues as they are not paid to public entities.
The chapter is structured as follows. The first section examines the level of non-tax revenues across the LAC region in 2023 while the second section examines structure of non-tax revenues in the same year. The third section analyses how the level and structure of non-tax revenues has evolved in recent years while the fourth section compares non-tax revenues across developing regions based on information shown in the Global Revenue Statistics database. The fifth section concludes.
Central government non-tax revenues amounted to an average of 3.1% of GDP in 2023 for 22 out of 26 LAC countries covered in this publication excluding the four OECD member countries (Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and Mexico).5 Non-tax revenues ranged from 11.6% of GDP in Cuba to 0.4% in Peru (Figure 2.1). Non-tax revenues amounted to more than 5% of GDP in five of these countries: Cuba (11.6%), Bolivia (7.3%), Trinidad and Tobago (6.5%), Guyana (6.3%) and Brazil (5.5%).
Percentage of GDP
Note: The classification of countries into different sub-regions follows ECLAC’s classification and is based on the spoken language of countries.
The “Caribbean” includes English-speaking countries and Guyana, while “Central America” covers Spanish-speaking countries including Dominican Republic and Cuba.
Figures for Belize, Bolivia, Cuba and Ecuador refer to general government non-tax revenues as disaggregation by government level is not available and thus may not be comparable with other countries. The LAC average represents a simple average for 22 countries with non-tax revenue data excluding the four OECD members (Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and Mexico).
Source: Authors' calculation based on data from national sources (e.g. Ministry of Finance, Central Bank, Statistics Institution, Budget Office).
For most LAC countries, non-tax revenues accounted for a small share of total revenues collected by central government in 2023 (Figure 2.2). In seven countries (Cuba, Guyana, Panama, Paraguay, Brazil, Bolivia and Trinidad and Tobago), non-tax revenues contributed more than 20% of total revenues in 2023. It should be noted that the level, composition and revenue shares of non-tax revenues may be highly volatile in LAC countries, underlining the importance of tracking them over time. This volatility may be especially pronounced when non-tax revenues come from rents or dividends generated by non-renewable natural resources, which are highly sensitive to fluctuations in commodity prices (see Chapter 3).
Percentage of total revenue
Note: Figures for Belize, Bolivia, Cuba and Ecuador refer to general government revenues as disaggregation by government level is not available for non-tax revenues and thus may not be comparable with other countries. The four OECD member countries (Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and Mexico) are excluded from this analysis.
Source: Authors' calculation based on OECD et al. (2025[2]) and data from national sources (e.g. Ministry of Finance, Central Bank, Statistics Institution, Budget Office).
By way of comparison, average non-tax revenues in 35 African countries amounted to about one third of total revenues and 6.2% of GDP in 2022 (latest year available) (OECD/AUC/ATAF, 2024[3]). Meanwhile, data for 21 Asian and Pacific economies provided by Revenue Statistics in Asia and the Pacific shows that non-tax revenues amounted to about 10% of GDP on average and accounted for almost 40% of total revenues in 2022 (latest year available) (OECD, 2024[4]). A more detailed cross-regional comparison of non-tax revenues is provided at the end of the chapter.
The level of central government non-tax revenues differs across sub-regions in the LAC region. Central American countries, with the exception of Cuba and Panama, reported relatively low levels of non-tax revenues as a share of GDP, while the level was more evenly distributed across Caribbean countries and countries in South America. The large revenue share of non-tax revenues in Cuba is a consequence of the monetary reform in 2021, which caused non-tax revenues to rise from 27.2% of total revenues in 2020 to 62.7% in 2021 (OECD et al., 2023[5]).
Comprehensive non-tax revenue data across government levels can be hard to obtain as they are often under the responsibility of different authorities. In addition, several methodological and data issues arise when considering non-tax revenues that do not necessarily apply to data on revenues from taxes.
For example, some revenue sources, such as administrative fees, might be used as cost-recovery mechanisms and subtracted from cost figures rather than reported as revenues.
Sales of goods and services could be reported without deduction of costs, overstating a government’s revenues.
Grants, legal settlements and mining and oil contracts involve large payments by external entities such as multinational corporations and foreign governments that may be subject to different national oversight mechanisms. Some resource-rich countries may negotiate large payments from resource extraction payments as a lump sum that bundles together many categories of both tax and non-tax revenue, making detailed breakdowns less feasible.
Miscellaneous or unidentifiable revenues often account for a significant share of non-tax revenues compared to tax revenues. In some LAC countries, more than half of non-tax revenues cannot be classified under a specific OECD non-tax revenue category.
Finally, non-tax revenue categories may have generic names or come in aggregate form, making classification more difficult and less precise than tax statistics.
In 2023, sales of goods and services were the main source of central government non-tax revenues for 12 of the 22 LAC countries covered in this chapter (Figure 2.3). This category’s share of total non-tax revenues exceeded 50% in Barbados (98.6%), Saint Lucia (90.5%), Uruguay (79.1%), Belize (77.6%), Ecuador (71.4%), Argentina (71.0%), Antigua and Barbuda (66.7%), Guatemala (65.4%), Nicaragua (63.9%) and Bahamas (62.7%). In almost all these countries, the largest components within sales of goods and services were licence fees and charges for government services.
For Guyana, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago, Bolivia, Panama and Brazil, the largest proportion of non-tax revenues came from property income (rents, royalties, interest and dividends) in 2023. El Salvador collected 68.2% of non-tax revenue from fines and penalties6, while miscellaneous or unidentifiable revenues were the biggest component in Jamaica (89.9%), Cuba (66.8%)7 and Paraguay (52.6%).
Percentage of total non-tax revenue
Note: Figures for Belize, Bolivia, Cuba and Ecuador refer to general government non-tax revenues as disaggregation by government level is not available and thus may not be comparable with other countries. The four OECD member countries (Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and Mexico) are excluded from this analysis.
Source: Authors' calculation based on data from national sources (e.g. Ministry of Finance, Central Bank, Statistics Institution, Budget Office).
Among the five countries where property income contributed the most to central government non-tax revenues in 2023, rents and royalties on natural resources, particularly oil, gas and minerals, were the primary contributor in Guyana (94.3% of total non-tax revenues), Peru (80.8%), Trinidad and Tobago (75.6%) and Bolivia (46.4%). Meanwhile, interest and dividends accounted for the major share in Panama (61.4%) and Brazil (60.0%). Dividends from the Panama Canal contributed to more than 80% of Panama’s revenues from interest and dividends.
Revenues from natural resources, specifically natural resource royalties, were the largest component in the structure of non-tax revenues for some of the countries with highest level of non-tax revenues as a share of GDP in 2023. In Trinidad and Tobago, more than 75% of central government non-tax revenues came from natural resource royalties in 2023, including extraordinary revenue from oil and gas companies. In the same year, more than 90% of Guyana’s non-tax revenues were from the Natural Resource Fund8, which manages the country’s natural resource wealth, especially from fossil fuels (see Chapter 3).
Between 2022 and 2023, central government non-tax revenues in the LAC region declined by 0.7 percentage points (p.p.) as a share of GDP on average (Figure 2.4). This decline was primarily driven by a 0.4 p.p. decline in miscellaneous and unidentified revenue while the second-largest decline (of 0.3 p.p.) was in revenues from interest and dividends. These falls were partly offset by an increase of 0.1 p.p. in rents and royalties. Over the same period, tax revenues (at the general government level) for the 22 countries declined by 0.2 p.p. on average.
Non-tax revenues increased between 2022 and 2023 in ten of the 22 countries. The largest increases occurred in Guyana (1.9 p.p.), Trinidad and Tobago (1.1 p.p.) and Argentina (0.5 p.p.).
Changes in global commodity prices often lead to relatively high volatility in non-tax revenues for countries with significant natural resource revenues. Increases in rents and royalties drove almost all the changes in central government non-tax revenues in Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago while the increase in Argentina was mainly a result of higher sales of goods and services and, to a lesser degree, an increase in interest and dividends.
Percentage points (p.p.)
Note: Figures for Belize, Bolivia, Cuba and Ecuador refer to general government non-tax revenues as disaggregation by government level is not available and thus may not be comparable with other countries. The LAC average represents a simple average for 22 countries excluding the four OECD member countries (Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and Mexico) .
Source: Authors' calculation based on data from national sources (e.g. Ministry of Finance, Central Bank, Statistics Institution, Budget Office).
The remaining 12 countries experienced a decline in the level of central government non-tax revenues between 2022 and 2023, with the drop exceeding 1 p.p. in four countries: Cuba (8.7 p.p.), Ecuador (5.9 p.p.), Antigua and Barbuda (1.2 p.p.) and Bolivia (1.1 p.p.). The fall in non-tax revenues in Cuba was mainly due to a decline in miscellaneous and unidentified revenues of 8.3 p.p. A decline of 4.3 p.p. in revenues from interest and dividends and a 1.4 p.p. decline in revenues from sales of goods and services contributed to the fall in non-tax revenues in Ecuador. The drop in non-tax revenues of Antigua and Barbuda was caused by lower sales of goods and services, mainly related to a fall in receipts from citizenship by investment and miscellaneous revenues.
Looking back further, non-tax revenues declined by 0.4% of GDP between 2019 (the year immediately prior to the COVID-19 pandemic) and 2023 on average across the 22 countries in the region analysed in this chapter. This drop was due to declines in revenues from interest and dividends and from sales of goods and services (0.3 p.p. and 0.2 p.p. respectively), although these were partially offset by a 0.2 p.p. increase in revenues from rents and royalties. Between 2019 and 2023, tax revenues for these 22 countries declined by 0.5 p.p. on average.
Eight countries experienced an increase in central government non-tax revenues between 2019 and 2023. The largest increases occurred in Guyana (5.0 p.p.) and Bahamas (0.7 p.p.). Rents and royalties drove the increase in Guyana’s non-tax revenues while revenues from interest and dividends as well as miscellaneous revenues accounted for the increase in Bahamas.
In 14 countries, central government non-tax revenues decreased between 2019 and 2023. Ecuador (4.5 p.p.), Cuba (3.7 p.p.), Antigua and Barbuda (1.9 p.p.), Bolivia (1.3 p.p.) and Jamaica (0.9 p.p.) experienced the biggest drops.
The drop in Ecuador was mainly driven by a 4.1 p.p. decline in revenues from interest and dividends while a 1.7 p.p. fall in sales of goods and services was the primary contributor to the revenue decline in Antigua and Barbuda. Falls in miscellaneous revenues and revenues from interest and dividends (of 2.1 p.p. and 1.6 p.p. respectively) contributed to the overall fall in non-tax revenues in Cuba over the period. For Bolivia, the decline was mainly due to a 0.9 p.p. fall in rents and royalties. The drop in Jamaica’s non-tax revenues was caused by a 0.9 p.p. fall in miscellaneous revenues and a 0.1 p.p. reduction in grants.
Evolution of non-tax revenue structures during and after the COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic had a profound impact on government revenues globally, especially in developing countries that were less able to implement the robust support measures seen in developed economies (OECD, 2021[6]). Tax revenues in the countries considered in this chapter dropped by 0.6% of GDP on average in 2020 relative to 20199 (OECD, 2025[7]). Non-tax revenues collected by central government also fell in 2020 (by 0.2% of GDP) due to declines in revenues from rents and royalties (0.2% of GDP) and from interest and dividends (0.1% of GDP) (Figure 2.5).
As was the case with tax revenues, non-tax revenues in the LAC region rebounded strongly in 2021. The ratio of central government non-tax revenues to GDP was 0.8 p.p. higher in 2021 than in 2020, largely due to an increase of the same magnitude in miscellaneous revenues. However, this rebound was short-lived; non-tax revenues decreased as a share of GDP between 2021 and 2022 due to a fall of 0.6 p.p. in miscellaneous revenues, which offset an increase in rents and royalties related to higher commodity prices and increased hydrocarbon production (OECD et al., 2024[1]).
The downwards trend continued in 2023 because of significant year-on-year decreases in miscellaneous revenues as well as falls in revenues from interest and dividends and sales of goods and services.
Percentage of GDP
Note: The LAC average represents a simple average for 22 countries excluding the four OECD member countries (Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and Mexico).
Source: Authors' calculation based on data from national sources (e.g. Ministry of Finance, Central Bank, Statistics Institution, Budget Office).
The OECD’s Global Revenue Statistics database currently provides internationally comparable data on non-tax revenues for 35 out of 36 African countries and more than half of the 36 Asia-Pacific economies up to 2022. Several important distinctions can be observed across Africa, Asia and the Pacific, and the LAC region. For consistency with the data for LAC countries presented in this chapter, data analysed in this section are central government non-tax revenues when they are available.
On average, Asia-Pacific economies reported the highest level of non-tax revenues among the three regions, at above 10% of GDP on average in the four years between 2019 and 2022 for 21 economies10. Non-tax revenues in Marshall Islands and Nauru amounted to over 50% of GDP in 2022. In comparison, African countries collected about 6% of GDP on average over the same period while the 22 LAC countries studied here collected less than 5% on average (Figure 2.6). This is in contrast to tax revenue collections, which were consistently the highest as a share of GDP on average across LAC countries over the period, followed by Asia-Pacific (19.3% in 2022) and Africa (16.0% in 2022).
Revenues from sales of goods and services, in particular licence fees and government service charges, accounted for the majority of non-tax revenues in the LAC region (36.8% of total non-tax revenues) and exceeded 50% in eight of the 22 countries in 2022. On average, the largest component of non-tax revenues in Africa was property income (43.3%) within which rents and royalties amounted to 28.8% of total non-tax revenues.
Note: Non-tax revenues used in calculations are received at central government level when they are available. Across the three regions, most countries report central government non-tax revenue data though a small share only provide general government data as disaggregation by government level is not available. The LAC average represents a simple average for 22 countries excluding the four OECD members (Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and Mexico). The Africa average represents a simple average of 35 African countries reporting non-tax revenue data to Revenue Statistics in Africa. The Asia-Pacific average represents a simple average of 21 Asia-Pacific economies reporting non-tax revenue data to OECD's Revenue Statistics in Asia and the Pacific, excluding Tokelau due to data issues.
Source: OECD Global Revenue Statistics (database); authors' calculations based on data from national sources (e.g. Ministry of Finance, Central Bank, Statistics Institution, Budget Office).
For many African countries, the bulk of non-tax revenues come from extractive-related revenues (i.e. from oil, gas, minerals, forestry and fishing). For nine African countries, extractive-related revenues accounted for the majority of non-tax revenues; for three African countries (Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and the Republic of the Congo), they represented over 95%. Oil and gas accounted for almost the entirety of extractive revenues for these countries.
Economies in the Asia-Pacific region also received the largest proportion of their non-tax revenues from property income in 2022 on average (40.6%), although the amount was evenly split between rents and royalties and interest and dividends (about 19% in each case). Rents and royalties from natural resources were driven mainly by fishing activities in certain Pacific islands and income from oil and minerals in Kazakhstan and Mongolia. Interest and dividend payments featured predominantly in the global financial centres of Hong Kong (China) and Singapore, as well as in Pakistan and (to a lesser extent) Thailand.
The other major structural difference between non-tax revenues across the three regions was the lower contribution of grants from foreign governments and international organisations in the LAC region. At about 0.04% of GDP on average, external grants received by LAC countries in 2022 were far smaller than those reported in Africa and Asia-Pacific.
Average grant revenues for 35 African countries amounted to 1.3% of GDP in 2022 on average. Sixteen African countries received grant revenues to less than 0.5% of GDP in 2022 and nine countries received more than half of their non-tax revenues in the form of grants. In Asia-Pacific, grants accounted for a significant share of total non-tax revenue in Bhutan, Cambodia, Cook Islands, Marshall Islands, Papua New Guinea and Samoa.
Accounting for non-tax revenues is essential for a comprehensive understanding of a country’s public finances. This is especially true for countries that rely significantly on revenues from natural resources, where non-tax revenues may exceed revenues from taxes (OECD, 2024[4]). This chapter collects and classifies central government revenues from non-tax sources such as rents, royalties, interest and dividends, sales of goods and services, fines and penalties and grants for LAC countries for the first time. Trends in non-tax revenue levels and structures across 22 countries between 2019 and 2023 are presented and analysed.
In 2023, central government non-tax revenues ranged from 11.6% of GDP in Cuba to 0.4% in Peru. In 2023, the LAC average for non-tax revenues stood at 3.1% of GDP. This is significantly lower than the average tax-to-GDP ratio of 21.2% in 2023 for the 22 countries included in this chapter (ranging from 11.5% in Guyana to 32.0% in Brazil). In 2023, sales of goods and services were the main source of central government non-tax revenues for more than half of the 22 LAC countries, followed by property income including rents, royalties, interest and dividends.
Non-tax revenues fell by 0.2% of GDP in 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although these losses were fully recovered by 2021, non-tax revenues declined again by 0.3 p.p. in 2022 and 0.7 p.p. in 2023.
This special feature paves the way for deeper research on more detailed and granular data in the future. Future studies may include analysis of sub-national non-tax revenue data which are often harder to obtain; analysis of non-tax data over a longer time horizon; research of country-specific information to provide more insights on non-tax revenues composition and trends; or thematic studies on non-tax revenues from sources of particular interest.
References
[7] OECD (2025), Global Revenue Statistics (database), OECD Publishing, Paris, https://www.oecd.org/en/data/datasets/global-revenue-statistics-database.html (accessed on 14 May 2025).
[4] OECD (2024), Revenue Statistics in Asia and the Pacific 2024: Tax Revenue Buoyancy in Asia, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/e4681bfa-en.
[6] OECD (2021), Revenue Statistics 2021: The Initial Impact of COVID-19 on OECD Tax Revenues, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/6e87f932-en.
[2] OECD et al. (2025), Revenue Statistics in Latin America and the Caribbean 2025, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/7594fbdd-en.
[1] OECD et al. (2024), Revenue Statistics in Latin America and the Caribbean 2024, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/33e226ae-en.
[5] OECD et al. (2023), Revenue Statistics in Latin America and the Caribbean 2023, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/a7640683-en.
[3] OECD/AUC/ATAF (2024), Revenue Statistics in Africa 2024: Facilitation and Trust as Drivers of Voluntary Tax Compliance in Selected African Tax Administrations, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/78e9af3a-en.
The definition of non-tax revenues and the main subcategories generally correspond to the concepts laid out in the 2014 IMF Government Finance Statistics Manual (GFSM 2014). Non-tax revenues refer to increases in government net worth resulting from transactions other than tax revenues. They exclude funds arising from the repayment of previous lending by governments or from borrowing, or proceeds derived from sales of fixed capital assets, stocks, land and intangible assets or private gifts. Non-tax revenues are made up of five major elements.
GFSM 2014 states “Grants are transfers receivable by government units from non-resident government units or international organisations without the receipt of any goods, services, or assets in return. Grants are normally receivable in cash but may also take the form of the receipt of goods or services (in kind)”. These transfers are un-refundable and unrequited.
Grants encompass reparations and gifts given for particular projects or programmes. The term “grants” is not used to refer to transfers to or from non-governmental units and excludes inter-governmental transfers. The remission of funds collected by one government for another in an agency capacity should not be shown as receipt of a grant by the beneficiary government but as its direct receipt of revenue.
This category includes income to government arising from their ownership of property, enterprises, financial assets, or intangible assets when government units place them at the disposal of other units. Sales of non-financial assets such as the sales of lands are not recorded as revenue because disposal of such an asset does not increase the net worth. Similarly, repayments on loans and loan disbursements are not revenue. Property income may take the form of dividends, interest, land rents, royalties, or withdrawals from entrepreneurial income.
Interest and dividends: Interest is the revenue earned by the government unit from a financial asset by putting it at the disposal of another institutional unit. Dividends are the revenue earned by placing equity funds at the disposal of a corporation (resident or non-resident corporation). This category also consists of profits of state-owned enterprises except those classified as fiscal monopolies, export and import monopoly profits or those providing public utilities such as rail transport, electricity, post offices and other communications. In this category are included revenue from public financial institutions such as the central banks’ profits, profits transferred or distributed from the operation of monetary authority functions outside the central bank and the profits of state lotteries transferred to the government. Transfers from public utilities enterprises are recorded as non-tax revenue under “sales of goods and services” whereas profits for fiscal, export or import monopolies are classified as tax revenue.
Rents or royalties: Rent is the revenue generated from natural resources, such as land, mining, or oil resources, when a government unit places these at the disposal of private or foreign entities. The rents received relate to a resource lease-giving agreement for the exploitation and extraction of a natural resource by the lessee in return for a payment. Payments for exploration rights are also treated as rent. Rents should not be confused with other payments a government may receive related to the exploitation of subsoil and similar assets, such as severance taxes, business licenses, or other taxes (e.g. value added taxes, excises, taxes on exports, etc.). They should also not be taken to mean incomes from the rental of buildings and equipment, which are treated as sales of goods and services. Revenues from rents and royalties are in some cases difficult to establish and depend on the agreement between the government unit and the lessee. For example, rents, royalties and taxes such as corporate income taxes and VAT are sometimes encompassed in a single payment to the general government. In such cases the revenue should be classified under the category to which the majority of revenue belongs.
Other property income: This includes revenue earned by a government unit placing funds at a disposal of quasi-corporations. Conceptually this source of revenue is equivalent to that of dividends from a corporation but by definition, quasi-corporations cannot distribute income in the form of dividends. This category of “other property income” also includes retained or reinvested earnings, i.e. the percentage of distributable revenue not paid out as dividends, but retained by the corporation or quasi-corporation on foreign investment; property income from investment income disbursements and unidentified property income.
Revenue under the category “sales of goods and services” is generally reported on a gross basis, without deduction of costs. Since these costs can represent a significant proportion of revenues, they cannot be regarded in total as funds available for governments to finance their general activities. This contrasts with tax revenues, where the collection costs are usually a small proportion of revenue. This difference implies that it may not be meaningful to sum tax and non-tax revenues as part of a calculation of generally available funds.
The proceeds of sales of nonfinancial assets such as the sale of buildings or lands are not classified as revenues since their disposal does not increase the net worth. Sales of goods and services consist of sales of government goods and services by market and non-market establishments, administrative fees for government services, and leasing of government buildings and equipment.
The GFSM 2014 states “Fines and penalties are compulsory transfers imposed by courts of law or bodies for violations of laws or administrative rules. Out-of-court agreements are also included (...). Forfeits are amounts deposited with a general government unit pending a legal or administrative proceeding, and that will be transferred to the unit upon resolution”. For example, traffic fines are included here. Fines and penalties charged on overdue taxes or penalties imposed for the evasion of taxes should be recorded in this category and not as taxes. However, if it is not possible to separate the amounts paid in taxes and fines, the whole amount should be classified under the tax to which the fine relates.
This category consists of unidentified non-tax revenues or those that do not fit into any of the other categories listed above. It includes revenue such as gifts and transfers from individuals, private non-profit institutions, nongovernmental foundations, corporations, or sources other than governments and international organisations. Major non-recurrent payments receivable in compensation for extensive damages or serious injuries not covered by insurance policies are also included, such as payments of compensation for damages caused by major explosions; oil spillages; or payments receivable for damage to property other than payments from an insurance settlement.
This category also includes the actual and imputed contributions to social insurance schemes operated by governments as employers on behalf of their employees that do not create a future defined liability, as well as the sum of the total voluntary contributions.
← 1. There is an overlap between this chapter and Chapter 3. Although revenue data shown in this chapter is generally consistent with that presented in Chapter 3, figures may be lower in this chapter. There are various possible reasons for any discrepancies, which relate to the availability and granularity of data analysed in each chapter: differences in the level of government covered (e.g. Argentina), data sources (e.g. Ecuador) or classification (e.g. Guyana).
← 2. Data for Belize, Bolivia, Cuba and Ecuador refer to general government non-tax revenues as disaggregation by level of government is not available. The four OECD members (Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and Mexico) are excluded due to different data collection approaches.
← 3. Data at central government level are analysed in order to achieve broader country coverage since subnational revenue data are hard to obtain for some countries. Following international practice, the chapter includes transfers from other general government units in central government non-tax revenues under the miscellaneous and unidentified revenue category. Non-tax revenues at general government level do not include such transfers.
← 4. Equivalent Fiscal Pressure is a complementary indicator to the tax-to-GDP ratio that includes two additional sources of revenue: contributions to private social security systems (pensions and health) and non-tax revenues from the exploitation of natural resources (OECD et al., 2024[1]).
← 5. Represents a simple average of 22 LAC countries excluding the four OECD member countries from the LAC region (Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and Mexico).
← 6. El Salvador data does not distinguish between revenues from fines and penalties and other non-tax revenues.
← 7. While the decomposition of miscellaneous and unidentified revenues in Cuba is not available, these revenues are likely to be the sales of goods and services by state-owned enterprises (SOEs). SOEs account for a large proportion of key sectors such as sugar, tobacco, pharmaceuticals, energy, tourism and telecommunications and contribute significantly to Cuba's exports and sales.
← 8. Revenues withdrawn from Natural Resource Fund are included in the data for this chapter. ECLAC considers the deposits in Natural Resource Fund, not withdrawal, as royalties.
← 9. The LAC average for tax revenues represents the unweighted average of 22 LAC countries included in this chapter and excludes Cuba (up to 2020) due to data issues : a monetary reform implemented in 2021 led to a substantial change in the tax-to-GDP ratio between 2020 and 2021 (OECD et al., 2023[5]).
← 10. Twenty-two Asian and Pacific economies reported non-tax revenue data for the 2024 edition of Revenue Statistics in Asia and the Pacific. However, Tokelau is excluded in the calculation of the regional average because its ratio exceeded 100% due to a different method of GDP calculation.