Idaho state revenues up in March but still behind for the current fiscal year as a whole

Idaho state revenues beat their projections for the month of March, but continue to lag behind the forecast the Idaho Legislature used for the state budget, according to a new state revenue report released Monday.

The good news? Idaho’s state budget is forecast to end the current fiscal year with a budget surplus of $36.9 million on June 30 if revenues come in as forecast for the remainder of the fiscal year.

The reason it’s still too early to celebrate? That projected state budget surplus is $30.5 million less than the $67.3 million projected surplus that Idaho legislators estimated when they adjourned the 2026 legislative session on April 2.

That is because overall state revenue collections for the entire fiscal year 2026 have come in $30.5 million below the revenue projection the Idaho Legislature’s joint budget committee set in January.

“If revenue collections perform exactly as forecasted for the rest of the year, the ending balance would be $36.9 million,” state officials wrote in the April edition of the Fiscal Year 2026 General Fund Budget Monitor report.

The bottom line on the state budget is watched closely every year because the Idaho Constitution prohibits the state from running a budget deficit where expenses exceed revenues.

The recent 2026 Idaho legislative session was dominated by near across-the-board budget cuts for all state agencies, programs and departments in order to pay for federal tax cuts President Donald Trump signed into law with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, to guard against state revenue uncertainty and to avoid an unconstitutional state budget deficit.

According to the new report, individual income tax, corporate income tax and sales tax collections all exceeded forecast amounts for March.

The report also noted that Gov. Brad Little’s veto of House Bill 975 means an additional $53.7 million will be transferred from the Budget Stabilization Fund savings account to the general fund portion of the state budget to start fiscal year 2027. By voting House Bill 975, Little ensured that an additional money above the 15% savings account cap will be transferred to the state general fund rather than remain in savings reserve accounts.

Idaho runs on a fiscal year calendar where fiscal year 2026 ends June 30 and fiscal year 2027 begins July 1. That means Idaho has three more months of revenue collections before ending the current fiscal year. State budget officials routinely say April is one of the most important months of the entire year because it includes tax returns.

Efforts to reach Sen. Scott Grow, a Republican from Eagle who serves as co-chairman of the Idaho Legislature’s Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, were not immediately successful Tuesday.

More information on the budget can be found here.

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