The UN General Assembly voted on Tuesday to adopt an operating budget of $3.45 billion for 2026, up from $3.72 billion this year, to finance administrative and operational activities.
The reduction, which includes cutting 2,900 jobs, comes as the UN tries to save costs where possible. Earlier this month, the organization announced it would no longer provide paper towels at the restrooms at its global headquarters in New York.
“Liquidity remains vulnerable, and this challenge will persist regardless of the final budget adopted by the General Assembly – given the unacceptable level of payment arrears,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said earlier this month in his own proposal for next year’s revised budget. The approved budget is about $200 million higher than the UN leader had proposed.
Guterres, who has been working for months on a financial survival plan for the UN, proposed cutting the budget by $577 million and cutting 18% of jobs. For the drastic measures, he cited payment arrears from recent years – most of which are owed by the US.
The US typically contributes 22% to the regular UN budget, but the Trump administration has not paid its $826 million bill for 2025 and still has arrears of around $660 million. On Monday, the US pledged $2 billion to the organization’s humanitarian arm.
Previously: US pledges $2 billion to UN humanitarian causes amid overhaul
President Donald Trump has accused the U.N. of wasting taxpayers’ money, and U.S. officials have begun an effort to take the organization “back to basics” in his second term.
“We are working on the United Nations,” U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz said in a post on
“It’s time for the UN to get back to basics: stopping wars and preventing conflict, and NOT funding a bloated bureaucracy at the expense of the American taxpayer.”
The regular budget of the United Nations amounts to only a fraction of the total expenditure of its member organizations. Agencies such as Unicef and UNESCO are facing their own budget deficits and are also planning major cuts.
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Published on December 31, 2025
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