The Gross National Income (GNI)-based resource was an ‘additional’ resource that provided the revenue required to cover expenditure in excess of the amount financed by traditional own resources, VAT-based contributions and other revenue in any year.
The GNI-based resource ensured that the general budget of the Union was always initially balanced.
The GNI call rate was determined by the additional revenue needed to finance the budgeted expenditure not covered by the other resources (VAT-based payments, traditional own resources and other revenue). Thus a call rate was applied to the GNI of each of the Member States.
Due to this covering mechanism the rate to be applied to the Member States’ gross national income varied from one financial year to another.
This resource represented the largest source of revenue of the EU budget for the period (around 70% of the total financing). For instance the GNI-based contribution for 2017 was EUR 78.6 billion.
The total amount of own resources that could be collected for the EU budget from Member States in any given year was limited with reference to the Member States' GNI. Under the 2014-2020 Eu budget, the total amount of own resources allocated to the Union to cover annual appropriations for payments could not exceed 1.20 % of the sum of all the Member States' GNI.
The gross national income at market prices was defined in accordance with the European system of national and regional accounts (ESA 2010).
ESA 2010 is an internationally compatible-accounting framework for a systematic and detailed description of a total economy (that is, a region, country or group of countries), its components and its relations with other total economies.
The Commission verified the sources and methods used by Member States to calculate the GNI.
For more information, see the Spending and Revenue chart.