The government's fiscal rules will be tested in 2029/30 at Wednesday's Budget, a House of Commons Library briefing confirms. The OBR's five-year forecast will reach 2031/32 for the first time.
The briefing says the OBR will publish revised forecasts for the economy and the public finances on 28 October, the same day as the Budget statement. The targets for the day-to-day budget and net financial debt apply in the third year of the forecast. In the October forecast that year is 2029/30.
This bears out the shift in target year that the analyst Philip Shaw, writing in City AM, said could improve headroom by £6.7bn. The briefing confirms the new target year but does not put a figure on its effect. The £6.7bn estimate has not been independently checked.
The Library also notes that the OBR's March 2026 forecast was finalised before the Middle East conflict escalated.
At the 2025 Autumn Budget, the OBR put the probability that the current budget would be in surplus in 2029/30 at 59%. It gave a 52% probability that net financial debt would fall as a share of GDP.