Benidorm closes its 2025 budget with savings of 43.3 million euros to cover general expenses

Benidorm City Council has closed the 2025 municipal budget with a Treasury surplus for general expenses amounting to €43,307,269.34, resulting from savings generated during the previous fiscal year. This is in addition to €8,183,621.48 estimated by the municipal Economic Department as doubtful accounts receivable, plus another €26,487,073.63 in Treasury surplus for expenses with earmarked funding for the execution of various works and investments currently underway, including the roundabout on the N-332 highway (a state-owned project) and the works on the Vial Discotecas (Nightclub Road). All of this results in a total Treasury surplus of €78 million.

The city's mayor, Toni Pérez, announced this information today at a press conference, where he reported on the current municipal financial situation, following the signing of this budget settlement. This settlement will be shared with all political groups in the City Council and will also be presented at the next plenary session. The mayor reiterated that the municipal accounts "are sound and comply with all legal requirements," adding that "we have the capacity to continue covering expenses without raising taxes or municipal fees, as we promised the citizens."

During his presentation, Pérez indicated that, once the 2025 budget is settled, the municipal budget for 2026 will be addressed shortly. This document, currently being finalised by city technicians, "will be a perfectly balanced budget, complying with regulations and meeting the city's needs, and will hardly differ from the draft we presented last December." He also stated that “it will be far removed from the predictions made by some self-serving individuals in recent months, the same ones who, when they had the opportunity to govern this city, did a disastrous job,” alluding to the Socialist group.

Furthermore, he announced the local government's intention to relaunch the #BenidormTeDaMás consumer voucher program in 2026, running from December 15th to 31st, as in previous years. “It's a project we believe in because it provides families with a significant boost to their household budgets and also translates into a boost for the city's businesses,” he asserted.

Economic plan 

In accordance with accounting stability regulations and following the technical recommendations at all times, the full amount of the ruling regarding the Serra Gelada APR7 project has been included in the 2025 budget settlement; specifically, €348,659,377.85, as explained by the mayor. This circumstance, as detailed in a report prepared by the Intervention Department, has resulted in “non-compliance with budgetary stability and the spending rule in fiscal year 2025” due to “a highly extraordinary and temporary cause, namely the finality” of said ruling, as explained by the mayor.

Given this situation, it is necessary to “formulate an economic and financial plan that will allow compliance with the stability and spending rule objectives in the current and following years.” This plan, on which the technical staff are currently working, will, as the report continues, “be purely formal, without the need to adopt restrictive measures regarding spending or revenue, because the origin of these breaches fortunately does not stem from structural reasons,” but rather from the outcome of ruling 343 of the High Court of Justice.

Furthermore, the Comptroller's report confirms that this amount of just over 348.6 million euros “will gradually decrease as the provisions of the out-of-court settlement” between the Benidorm City Council and the plaintiff on March 17th, “and which was judicially ratified on March 18th, 2026,” are periodically implemented. Therefore, as Toni Pérez stated, it will be an “absolutely temporary and one-off” plan.

“We respect public money”

Finally, the mayor also addressed some of the statements made in recent weeks by the Socialist opposition, as well as those made yesterday, Monday, before the full council. Specifically, they claimed that the mayor had awarded “3.5 million euros in minor contracts without competitive bidding” or referred to “collaborating companies.” “They can’t talk about it because these are things they themselves have done. And the data is there, the Audit Office, and the fines and final judgments with even the repayment of money they had kept,” he lamented, adding that “they are deceiving the people, my neighbours, when the only truth is that there has always been absolute transparency and legality here.”

“I’ve never understood what a ‘no-bid’ contract was. I know who awarded them, because it’s all in the courts,” he stated, before adding that those types of contracts were awarded by “the government immediately preceding our arrival at the Mayor’s office, because with me and this governing team since 2015, all minor contracts have been and continue to be thoroughly audited, always carefully managed, and without recklessly spending anyone’s money, because we respect public funds from the first to the last cent.”

“The idea that public money belongs to no one is a socialist thesis, a socialist thesis of the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party). We are not from the PSOE; we are from the People’s Party, and we have absolute respect for public funds,” he concluded.