António Guterres says the international body could run out of money by July due to members' unpaid fees.
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António Guterres said the UN faced a financial crisis which was "deepening, threatening programme delivery", and that money could run out by July.
He wrote in a letter to ambassadors that all 193 member states had to honour their mandatory payments or fundamentally overhaul the organisation's financial rules to avoid collapse.
It comes after the UN's largest contributor, the US, refused to contribute to its regular and peacekeeping budgets, and withdrew from several agencies it called a "waste of taxpayer dollars".
Guterres said the UN had faced financial crises in the past but that the current situation was "categorically different".
"Decisions not to honour assessed contributions that finance a significant share of the approved regular budget have now been formally announced," the secretary general wrote, without naming specific members.
He said the "integrity of the entire system" depended on states adhering to their legal obligation under the UN charter to pay their "assessed contributions", adding that 2025 ended with a record amount unpaid - equivalent to 77% of the total owed.
Guterres said a rule that the UN must return unspent money to members if it could not implement a budget created a "double blow" in which it was "expected to give back cash that does not exist".
"I cannot overstate the urgency of the situation we now face. We cannot execute budgets with uncollected funds, nor return funds we never received."
He wrote: "The bottom line is clear: either all member states honour their obligations to pay in full and on time – or member states must fundamentally overhaul our financial rules to prevent an imminent financial collapse."
The US is the international organisation's largest contributor, but President Donald Trump has said it was not fulfilling its "great po
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