From January 1, 2025, to mid-August of this year, 11,241 beneficiaries have utilized the unreliable borrowers program, of which 4,261 have found employment as a result of the program's implementation. These figures were provided to Hetq by the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs.
In December 2024, the government announced the launch of a program aimed at rehabilitating the credit history of unreliable borrowers and bringing them back to the labor market. It is called the "Economic Activity Stimulation Measure for Individuals with Unreliable Loans".
The program is available to citizens whose total principal amounts of loans (excluding penalties and fines) are less than 1 million drams, and these loans have been classified as unreliable for at least 3 years. In simple terms, it targets those citizens who have taken loans and have not repaid them for years.
Another important condition is that they must have formal, registered employment or occupation.
The support is as follows: as working citizens, their paid income tax is directed not to the state budget, as is the case with other citizens (except for those benefiting from income tax return programs), but to loan repayments. After the program ends (for a maximum of 24 months), this income tax will fully start going into the budget.
According to the president of the Union of Banks of Armenia, Daniel Azatyan, the actual number of applicants is only 5-10% of the expected number of beneficiaries.
"If a person has decided not to repay the loans, no matter what you do, they won't repay. Moreover, the established threshold of 1 million drams refers to the principal amount. If they took a loan of 500 thousand drams, but due to penalties and fines it has become 2 million drams, they can still become a beneficiary of the program. Those who meet the requirements have been unanimously accepted by the banks, and 80% of penalties and fines have been waived," said Daniel Azatyan.
Initially, when the program was in the discussion phase, the government announced a large potential number of beneficiaries—218,000 individuals who could apply for the program. However, the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs predicts that around 60% of these potential beneficiaries would apply, meaning about 131,000 individuals. However, the actual figures are currently significantly lower than those initially projected.
Approximately 2.7 billion drams have been directed to the repayment of beneficiaries' loans
The Ministry of Social Protection reports that approximately 2 billion 658 million drams have been allocated for the repayment of unreliable loans of beneficiaries since the beginning of 2025, which is essentially the amount of income tax directed to this program.
