As of March 13, 2026, the State Revenue Service (SRS) received 465,507 annual income declarations, and 29.92 million euros in tax overpayments, healthcare, and education expenses were returned to the people, writes Latvijas Avīze.
If we judge by the data from 2025, when 917,000 residents submitted their income declarations, we are currently about halfway through this process - half have already submitted them, while the other half is still preparing to do so. It is also noticeable that the amounts of overpaid taxes and expenses for healthcare and education that the state reimburses to residents are significantly lower.
Last year, after receiving less than a million income declarations, the state reimbursed residents 311 million euros. This year, the number of declarations submitted so far is about half of that, and the amount to be reimbursed has decreased tenfold - to less than 30 million. If the process of submitting declarations continues at the same rate, the amount the state will return to residents could be around 60 million euros instead of the previous 300 million. However, this year, at least so far, there have been no complaints from the population about cases where people had to pay additional taxes to the state after submitting their declarations - last year there were quite a few such cases, and the state collected 92.5 million euros in additional taxes.
Significant differences can be explained by changes in legislation. There are four major changes. First, the main reason for the formation of tax overpayments or debts during the year has been eliminated - the differentiated or projected tax-free minimum has been replaced by a single fixed tax-free minimum regardless of a person's income - 510 euros per month. Consequently, in 2025, income tax from the population was withheld from salaries more accurately each month.
The second significant change is the increase of the tax-free minimum for pensioners to 1000 euros per month since January 1 of last year. Thus, income tax from the population is only levied on pensions exceeding 1000 euros per month, which are few, or if the pensioner continues to work. Therefore, pensioners receiving a pension of up to 1000 euros per month can no longer have tax overpayments and have no motivation to submit an annual income declaration. However, it is still worth submitting a declaration if the pensioner had expenses for healthcare or education.
In turn, declarations must be submitted by those who conduct any economic activity, for example, renting out property, or receiving any other income, such as from investments in financial markets.
