The United Nations could run out of cash by July, its chief warned, as the organization continues to tackle a financial crisis largely fueled by overdue US payments.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres told member states that the world body is facing “imminent financial collapse” and that if historical trends continue, its regular budget could become depleted in the next six months.
In the Jan. 28 letter seen by Bloomberg News, Guterres says that a budget rule requiring the UN to return any unspent money has made it especially difficult for the organization to stay liquid. “The more we save, the more we are penalized,” he wrote.
The institution has long been strapped for cash, but it has been especially squeezed since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term as the US has assailed international organizations and refused to pay its dues — instead taking a more selective approach to the causes it helps fund.
The US mission to the UN did not respond to a request for comment on Friday.
At the same time, the White House has sought to jump-start its Board of Peace. The panel was initially meant to help administer Gaza after an Israel-Hamas truce, but Trump has cast it as a substitute for a UN he said has failed to live up to its potential.
“The UN has been in a perpetual financial crisis,” says Daniel Forti, who heads UN affairs at the International Crisis Group. “If the US pays some of the money it owes, then it would serve as a bit of a pressure valve, but it doesn’t fundamentally change the bottom line of how dire the UN’s financial situation is, absent the US making good on multiple years of payments.”
The US is traditionally responsible for 22% of the organization’s budget. It still owes the UN about $1.4 billion in arrears for years past, on top of a $767 million bill for this year’s budget, according to a senior UN official. In 2025, the White House did not pay any of its $826 million in dues.
The US did pledge $2 billion to the organization’s humanitarian arm in December, while refusing to pay its mandatory fees.
Last year, the UN signaled it could run out of money by September. It managed to stretch funds with some cuts and budget reforms, said Forti. “Even compared to last year, the circumstances are worse,” he said.
Guterres has been trying to scale back spending and reverse funding issues since 2024. He even launched a new initiative to try to overhaul the institution, and in December the organization announced that it would no longer provide paper towels at the restrooms in its global headquarters in New York in order to save around $100,000. Already, the UN cut this year’s budget by 7% relative to the year before.
The structural funding shortfall is simply too large to offset through internal reforms alone. It doesn’t help that once a budget is decided for the organization, any unspent funds at the end of the cycle must be returned to member states.
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