The state budget includes ordinary revenues and expenditures and a special investment budget administered by the Ministry of Coordination. The public sector, which employs 15% of the workforce, has many more civil servants than required for a country the size of Greece. Public payrolls, liberal social security benefits, and loss-generating state owned companies have all contributed to a government deficit. Recent austerity measures implemented to meet the criteria for European Monetary Union membership significantly lowered the budget shortfall.

The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) estimates that in 1998 Greece's central government took in revenues of approximately $45 billion and had expenditures of $47.6 billion. Overall, the government registered a deficit of approximately $2.6 billion. External debt totaled $63.4 billion.