Revenue expenditure are that expenditure in the revenue budget of the government that is incurred for the day to day running of the government. Interest payments, defence revenue expenditure, salaries, pensions etc are the major revenue expenditure items.
Really, revenue expenditure is considered as unproductive expenditure because it is mainly used for the running of the government machinery. Unlike in the case of capital expenditure, revenue expenditure will not give any revenue to the government in future.
Important revenue expenditure are: interest payments (for the borrowing that the government has made in the past), defence (almost 70% of the defence expenditure are revenue expenditure), subsidies (subsidy is not a productive item for the government as there is no return from it for the government), salaries etc.
