Financial statements of the ECB for 2025

The financial statements of the European Central Bank (ECB) for 2025 show a loss of €1,254 million, which is much lower than the loss of €7,944 million reported in 2024, owing mainly to a significant reduction in net interest expense. The 2025 loss, like the losses from the prior years, will remain on the ECB’s balance sheet to be offset against future profits. As a result of the loss, there will be no profit distribution to euro area national central banks for 2025.

The losses since 2022 come after many years of substantial profits and are the result of policy actions taken by the Eurosystem that were necessary to fulfil its primary mandate of maintaining price stability. These policies required the ECB to expand its balance sheet by purchasing financial assets, mostly with fixed interest rates and long maturities. This resulted in a corresponding rise in the liabilities on which the ECB pays interest at variable rates. Thus, increases in the key ECB interest rates in 2022 and 2023 to combat high inflation in the euro area immediately pushed up interest expenses on the liabilities, while interest income on the ECB’s assets, in particular on securities purchased under the asset purchase programme (APP) and the pandemic emergency purchase programme (PEPP), did not increase to the same extent. Subsequent decreases in the key ECB interest rates since 2024 and the continual decline in the ECB’s liabilities, following the maturing of securities under the APP and the PEPP, are substantially reducing the effects of this interest mismatch. Thus, the net interest expense in 2025 was significantly lower than in the preceding years.

The ECB is expected to return to profit in 2026 or the year after, although this will depend on future levels of key ECB interest rates and foreign exchange rates, as well as on the size and composition of the ECB’s balance sheet. In any case, the ECB can operate effectively and fulfil its primary mandate of maintaining price stability regardless of any losses. Its financial strength is further underlined by its capital and its substantial revaluation accounts, which together amounted to €71 billion at the end of 2025, €12 billion higher than at the end of 2024.