Budget & tax
Public finance, tax and spending.
Nepal GDP grew 4% in Q4 2025/26, but Bhote Koshi floods cloud 2026/27
Electricity led growth in the last quarter of 2025/26. The Bhote Koshi floods have since disrupted power output, a border crossing and the state's budget.
Why a Kathmandu-Dhangadhi flight costs more than a flight to Delhi
State-set fare limits, expensive jet fuel and a five-month earning season sit behind a fare gap that has reached Nepal's parliament, according to The Kathmandu Post.
Sudurpaschim budget stalls again as ruling coalition turns on its own plan
Months into 2026/27, Nepal's far-western province still has no approved Rs 37.70bn budget, and the delay has disrupted administration and development work.
Sudurpashchim tables Rs 37.7bn budget as Supreme Court refuses interim order
Days after one justice ordered the revision halted, a joint bench declined to block it. Nepal's far-western province now has a plan before its assembly, about 70% funded by Kathmandu, and a legal question still open.
SEBON's IPO backlog has become a tax on Nepali capital
Companies wait years to learn whether they may raise money. A regulator that published a clock and its reasons would serve investors better than one that simply waits.
Nepal's revenue rises 16% but trails target as the flood squeezes northern trade
The government collected Rs 184.58bn in the first two months of 2026/27, against a target of Rs 214.81bn. Last year it met 83.5% of its revenue goal; this year's is Rs 1.58 trillion.
Nepal's provinces spent about two-thirds of their budgets, then planned Rs 292bn more
The seven provinces budgeted about Rs 288bn last year and spent Rs 184bn. This year's budgets are slightly larger, and still lean on federal money and capital projects that rarely finish on time.
Two railways to Kathmandu, from China and India, are still waiting on paperwork
China's feasibility study for the Kerung line was due in June, and India's Raxaul survey awaits approval in Delhi. Both routes would be mostly tunnels and bridges, and neither has a financing plan.
Nepal's power utility lifted sales by 18%, but currency losses cut its profit by 59%
The Nepal Electricity Authority's pre-tax profit fell to about Rs 5bn in 2025/26 as currency losses on its obligations nearly quadrupled, even though sales rose 18%.
Nepal's private schools win on a 3% levy but face a hard line on fees
The prime minister scrapped a proposed equity fee on private schools in July, months after his education ministry ordered refunds of fees charged beyond the legal limits.
Nepal's health insurer clears Rs 23bn of hospital bills, but only up to December
The Health Insurance Board paid hospitals Rs 23.44bn after private providers suspended services, yet claims since mid-December 2025 remain unfunded and a promised overhaul has no financing plan.
Nepal's motorcycle market reaches a four-year high, and four in five are assembled at home
Imports of motorcycles and scooters rose 30% last fiscal year to 277,291 units, most as kits for local plants, and the new year has started at a similar pace with electric scooters gaining.
A delay in LDC graduation is not a reprieve for Nepali business
Whether Nepal graduates next month or in 2029, its exporters will keep their access to rich markets only by meeting standards most have not yet tried to meet.
Nepal cannot keep exporting its young people as its main growth strategy
Remittances now exceed the national budget. That is a measure of failure at home as much as success abroad.
The electricity VAT has become the test of the government's tax resolve
Business wants the levy scrapped. Two ministries disagree in public about whether it will be. Behind the row lies a budget that needs revenue it is struggling to defend.
Nepal approves billions in foreign investment each year, but less than a third has ever arrived
Approvals fell for a second year in 2025/26 while actual inflows more than doubled, yet central bank data covering three decades show that most of the capital Nepal approves never crosses the border.
Nepal's Rs 2.12 trillion budget explained: the spending record it must beat, and a flood it did not plan for
Nepal's largest budget bets on tax reform and 7% growth, but the state spent less than half its capital allocation last year, and a Rs 559bn flood reconstruction plan now sits on top.
How Nepal's stock market works: NEPSE, Meroshare and the 8m-account investor base
A plain-English guide to a small, retail-driven exchange: who can invest, how Meroshare and brokers work, what this year's tax and trading-rule changes mean, and why banks and hydropower dominate.
Nepal's electric car boom meets a new tax regime
Electric cars dominate new sales in a country that imports all its fuel. A value-based levy introduced in May may decide whether that lasts.
Kathmandu's property market wakes up, helped by a rush to beat the taxman
Land registration revenue hit a three-year high as buyers raced a capital gains tax increase, and the central bank has loosened home-loan limits.
Nepal's startups grow up under a thicket of new rules
A change at the top of eSewa, fare caps for ride-hailing apps and a troubled state loan scheme show how the state is catching up with the digital economy.
Nepal's IT exports near $1bn, but the official books record a fraction
Software firms and freelancers now earn more abroad than many of the country's goods exporters, yet most of the money arrives labelled as remittance.
Nearly three years on, Nepal has yet to recognise the sale of Ncell
Axiata sold its 80% stake for a fixed $50m in 2023. Nepal's telecoms regulator has still not ruled on the sale, and the inquiry report on it is under a Supreme Court order.
Nepal's workers sent home more in one month than the state invested in a year
Remittances reached Rs 2.36 trillion ($16.19bn) in 2025/26, more than the national budget, while capital spending fell below half its target and private credit stayed weak.
Upendra Mahato's road from Siraha to Moscow and back
He turned $600 into a business spanning Russian electronics, Belarusian machinery and Nepal's first private mobile network, then founded the diaspora association whose split and reunion he has watched from its edge.
How Chandra Dhakal built a bank on the money Nepalis send home
In 2001 most of Nepal's remittances moved through informal hundi brokers. The IME founder bet that migrant workers would trust a licensed company instead, and turned that bet into the country's largest bank.
Nepal halved its tax on share profits months after raising it, and the harder reforms are still ahead
A 21-point plan to revive NEPSE has cut capital gains tax to 3.75% and 5%. Margin trading, a new index and access for Nepalis abroad depend on deadlines that start this month.
Balen Shah courts business leaders as investigators detain some of them
The prime minister promises not to arrest entrepreneurs without cause. His finance minister is holding meetings of his own. Investors are watching both.