On 22 May 2025 we reported that the UN was facing a worsening cash crisis that threatens its ability to carry out vital work.

Things have got a lot worse since then!

On 30 January the BBC reported that UN Secretary-General António Guterres had written a letter to all 193 member states warning that United Nations is at risk of “imminent financial collapse” due to member states not paying their dues.

Member states either have to honour their mandatory payments, he wrote, or overhaul the organisation’s financial rules to avoid collapse.

The Impossible Rule

There is a UN financial rule that says if the UN cannot not implement a budget then it must return unspent money on particular programmes to members. But, according to the Secretary-General, this means the UN is expected to give back cash that it has never received!

Guterres wrote “I cannot overstate the urgency of the situation we now face. We cannot execute budgets with uncollected funds, nor return funds we never received.”

As a result, the UN is now returning to member states millions of dollars it never received from them!

The letter reads: “Just this month, as part of the 2026 assessment, we were compelled to return $227m [£165m] – funds we have not collected.”

This is not a new issue. It was raised in February 2025 in a Report of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions called “Improving the financial situation of the United Nations” which made the paradox plain. But that has not prevented more and more member states from holding back their contributions

Trump’s Response

And how did the President of the United States, the largest contributor the United Nations, respond? As you might expect if you know anything about this man: as we have previously reported, he announced on January 7 that the US would withdraw from 66 international organisations, of which 31 are UN entities, that he believes operate contrary to US national interests, security, economic prosperity, or sovereignty.

The Secretary-General’s letter warned that the UN could run out of cash by July.

You can see on this UN document which states have currently paid their 2026 contributions in full. At the date of writing this article the number was 41 out of 193 members. According to the Financial Regulations, all members should pay in full by 8 February 2026.