China’s Ministry of Finance reported a sharp rise in securities transaction stamp tax receipts for 2025, a development that underlines the recent vigour in domestic capital markets even as overall fiscal receipts slipped. Stamp tax revenue climbed 57.8% year‑on‑year to 2,035 billion yuan (about ¥203.5 billion), a sizable one‑line gain for the state coffers driven, the ministry said, by stronger trading activity.
At the same briefing the ministry disclosed that the nation’s general public budget revenue for 2025 reached 21.6 trillion yuan, a decline of 1.7% from 2024. Tax receipts in aggregate were up only modestly — 0.8% year‑on‑year — signalling a tentative, uneven recovery in the underlying economy. Non‑tax revenue fell 11.3%, largely because 2024 included one‑off remittances from central units that inflated the prior year’s base.
The ministry also highlighted a social policy milestone: more than 30 million infants have received newly established childcare subsidies, and authorities will push to ensure that applications already approved in 2025 but not yet paid are fully disbursed by the end of March 2026. That programme is one of several measures Beijing has rolled out to tackle China’s long‑running demographic slowdown.
Taken together, the figures paint a mixed picture. The dramatic increase in stamp tax collections signals elevated turnover in equities and other traded instruments, which is welcome news for Beijing’s headline fiscal numbers. Yet the modest growth in total tax revenue and the fall in non‑tax receipts underscore a still fragile broader revenue base, vulnerable to one‑off items and market cycles.
For global investors and policy watchers the surge in stamp tax is a useful directional indicator: it suggests improved market liquidity and participation after months of policy support and a spate of technology and state‑linked listings. But reliance on volatile market‑driven taxes to prop up revenue can complicate fiscal planning if markets cool, while the drop in non‑tax income highlights the limits of depending on intermittent receipts.
Operationally, the ministry’s emphasis on completing childcare subsidy disbursements by March 2026 is significant because it reveals both the scale of implementation challenges and the political priority attached to family policy. Allocating roughly 100 billion yuan nationally to subsidies in 2025 — a figure referenced by provincial reporting — is fiscally meaningful and signals a shift toward targeted social spending even as aggregate revenues edge down.
Policymakers will therefore face a balancing act. A buoyant stock market can temporarily ease budgetary pressures and improve fiscal optics, but sustainable public finances depend on broader, steadier tax bases and continued attention to structural reforms that boost growth — from consumption to investment and services. How Beijing manages that transition will matter for both domestic stability and foreign capital’s appetite for Chinese assets.