Structure of Federal Interbudgetary Transfers and the Relationship Between Federal and Regional Level Transfers

The goal of this paper is to comprehensively characterize federal intergovernmental transfers and establish the degree of similarity between federal and intraregional transfers. Achieving the goal will help to understand the priorities of government policy and develop ways to increase spending efficiency. The relevance of the study is due to the lack of information on transfers according to criteria such as the functional classification of expenditures, the agency responsible for allocation, and the state program; how much transfers have changed in connection with the new national projects and what is the impact of federal transfers on intraregional ones. Data from the Federal Treasury and the Federal Budget laws for 2024–2026, 2025–2027 and 2026–2028 are used. It is established that there is a steady downward trend in the volume of federal intergovernmental transfers and an increase in the share of subsidies. The most “voluminous” federal subsidies are distributed among departments and areas of public policy. Social spending in the form of transfers (education, healthcare, and social policy) remains an absolute priority. It is found that the role of federal transfers, especially subsidies, in achieving national goals in 2025 increased: the share of such transfers is growing, as is their average size, especially for projects with the highest funding. At the same time, the problem of subsidy consolidation remains acute due to the growing number of transfers. It is revealed that the parameters of intraregional intergovernmental transfers repeat the parameters of federal ones: it is found that the share of transfers in the revenues of regional budgets, which go to the budgets of the regions, and then to the local budgets, is at least 70% (in monetary terms), and the areas of intraregional transfers depend on the structure of federal ones.