Finance Ministry To Begin Budget 2026-27 Exercise From October 9

New Delhi: The finance ministry will kick-start the exercise to prepare the annual budget for 2026-27 from October 9 in the backdrop of geopolitical uncertainties and the steep US tariff of 50 per cent imposed on shipments from India.

The budget for the next year will have to address issues of boosting demand, job creation and putting the economy on a sustained 8 per cent-plus growth path. The government estimates the Indian economy to grow in the range of 6.3-6.8 per cent during the current financial year.

"Pre-budget meetings chaired by Secretary (Expenditure) shall commence from October 9, 2025," according to the Budget Circular (2026-27) of the Department of Economic Affairs.

"Financial advisers should ensure that the necessary details required in the appendices I to VII are properly entered...before or latest by October 3, 2025. Hard copies of the data in the specified formats should be submitted for cross-verification," the circular added.

The Budget Estimates for 2026-27 will be provisionally finalised after completion of pre-budget meetings, it said, adding that RE (Revised Estimate) meetings continue till around mid-November 2025.

"All the ministries/departments should submit details of autonomous bodies/ implementing agencies, for which a dedicated corpus fund has been created. The reasons for their continuance and requirement of grant-in-aid support, and why the same should not be wound up, should be explained," it said.

The Budget 2026-27 is likely to be presented on February 1 during the first half of the Parliament's Budget session.

The Budget for the current fiscal has projected a growth rate of 10.1 per cent in nominal terms, while the fiscal deficit is pegged at 4.4 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP).

The Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government scrapped a colonial-era tradition of presenting the Budget at the end of February. The then finance minister Arun Jaitley had for the first time presented the annual accounts on February 1, 2017.

With the preponement of the Budget, ministries are now allocated their budgeted funds from the start of the financial year beginning in April. This gives government departments more leeway to spend, as well as allows companies time to adapt to business and taxation plans.

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