The country’s revenue collection faced a shortfall of Tk 1,04,533 crore in July–April of the current 2025–26 financial year, according to National Board of Revenue data.

For the 10 months of FY26, the revised target was set at Tk 4,31,461 crore, while the revenue board collected Tk 3,26,928 crore.

The huge amount of shortfall comes at a time when, according to officials, the government may set a revenue collection target of over Tk 6 lakh crore for the NBR in the forthcoming budget, which could be at least 20 per cent higher than the target set for FY26.

In FY25, the revenue board had faced a record collection shortfall of Tk 92,625 crore. However, the shortfall in the current financial year already surpassed the previous year’s one in just nine months, and went deeper in the tenth month, indicating that the NBR would face another record shortfall at the year-end.

Meanwhile, the revenue collection witnessed a year-on-year growth of 10.6 per cent in the July-April period of FY26 to Tk 3,26,928 crore, higher from Tk 2,95,601 crore collected in the same period of FY25.

In the single month of April 2026, revenue collection also grew by 6.51 per cent to Tk 39,060 crore, up from Tk 36,604 crore collected in April 2025.

However, the collection in April fell short of its target of Tk 45,609 crore by more than Tk 6,000 crore, according to NBR data.

During the July-April period of FY26, customs collections stood at Tk 90,763 crore, 8.87 per cent higher than the Tk 83,371 crore collected in the first 10 months of FY25. However, the section missed the target of Tk 1,15,955 crore.

Revenue collection from the value-added tax section was Tk 1,26,543 crore in the 10 months of FY26, which was 11.01 per cent higher than the Tk 1,13,997 crore collected in the same period of the previous financial year, though the section also missed its target of Tk 1,61,851 crore.

Fetching a growth of 11.59 per cent, revenue collection from the income tax sector stood at Tk 1,09,622 crore in the July-April period of FY26, up from Tk 98,233 crore in the corresponding period of FY25, the NBR data showed.

However, revenue collection from income tax also fell short of the target of Tk 1,53,655 crore.

Revenue collected from indirect sources was higher than that from direct sources in July-April of FY26, according to the NBR data.

For FY26, the government set a revenue collection target of Tk 4,99,000 crore through the NBR, which was about 8 per cent of the gross domestic product.

The NBR’s average revenue collection was over Tk 32,600 crore in the 10 months of the current financial year. The revenue board has been missing collection targets over the years.

A major challenge in achieving revenue targets is restoring the normal pace of business activities, which have been sluggish for some time due to global and national political issues, compounded by the recent Middle East crisis, economists said.

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have remained concerned about the lower revenue collection.

Recently, the Fitch Ratings revised Bangladesh’s credit outlook to ‘Negative’ from ‘Stable’, warning that rising external vulnerabilities, weak reforms, persistent banking sector fragility and governance weaknesses were eroding the country’s ability to absorb economic shocks.

The agency also identified Bangladesh’s weak revenue collection as another major vulnerability.

Bangladesh has been struggling to finance project developments amid a persistently low tax-to-GDP ratio, one of the lowest globally.

Economists and business leaders have long argued that achieving such ambitious revenue targets would be difficult with the existing tax administration, underscoring the need for comprehensive reforms.

The interim government had introduced an ordinance to reform the revenue sector. However, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led government did not present it to parliament as a bill, resulting in its lapse.

NBR chairman Abdur Rahman Khan recently said that the tax-to-GDP ratio remained below 7 per cent, limiting fiscal space for health, education and social protection.

He said that online return filing and several digitalisation measures had already been introduced, and that they would enable AI-based analysis of income patterns and improve policy and enforcement.

In FY25, the country collected Tk 3,70,874 crore in revenues, down about 3.08 per cent from the Tk 3,82,678 crore collected in FY24. In FY25, the revised revenue collection target was Tk 4,63,500 crore.