FinObservatory

Country profile / BHR

Bahrain

One canonical page for Bahrain’s financial profile, composed from the crisis atlas, IMF sovereign-debt data, the World Bank GFDD and Global Findex, the BIS credit, policy-rate and exchange-rate statistics, the external accounts (IMF balance of payments and international investment position, official reserves, capital-account openness and remittances), and the Penn World Table’s population and GDP scale. Each section links to its dedicated module and cites its own primary source; sections appear only where Bahrain has data.

Latest government debt
134.0%
2024 (Central govt (IMF GDD))
Financial crises on record
0
none in the five chronologies
Private credit by banks
73.9%
GFDD, 2015
BIS credit-cycle data
Not covered
BIS ~44-economy set only

Cross-border banking exposure: how much BIS-reporting banks lend to Bahrain.

Economic scale

Population, real GDP per capita, and total-factor productivity from the Penn World Table, 1950–2023. A scale reference for every other section on this page, not a financial-risk series in its own right.

Population
1.5723
millions
0.000.501.001.502.0019702023
Real GDP per capita (PPP)
5381423
2021 US$, chained
0.002000040000600008000019702023
Total factor productivity
0.9723
index, this country's 2021 = 1
0.001.002.003.004.0019742023

Source: Penn World Table 11.0 (Feenstra, Inklaar and Timmer 2015). License: CC BY 4.0. Methodology

Crisis history

No banking, currency, or sovereign-debt crisis is recorded for Bahrain in the five chronologies (Global Macro Database, Reinhart-Rogoff, Laeven-Valencia, JST, ECB/ESRB).

Source: Global Macro Database 2026_06 | Reinhart-Rogoff (HBS BFFS) | Laeven & Valencia (2020, 2026) | ECB/ESRB Financial Crises Database. License: non-commercial research (inherits GMD / JST); cite all five chronologies. Methodology

Financial depth and soundness

Depth (private credit, deposits) and soundness (Z-score, nonperforming loans, concentration) from the World Bank GFDD. GFDD values end in 2021 (the dataset’s last release year); a flat recent tail is the data stopping, not the sector standing still.

Private credit by banks
73.915
% of GDP
0.0025.050.075.019652015
Bank deposits
81.515
% of GDP
0.0025.050.075.010019652015
Bank Z-score
7.8121
index (higher = sounder)
6.008.0010.012.020002021
Nonperforming loans
4.4115
% of gross loans
2.004.006.0020082015
Bank concentration
82.021
% assets, top 3 banks
75.080.085.090.095.020002021

Source: World Bank Global Financial Development Database (Sep 2022). License: CC BY 4.0. Values end 2021 (GFDD's last release year). Methodology

Financial inclusion

How much of the adult population (age 15+) is inside the financial system, from the World Bank Global Findex 2025: account ownership, digital payments, and formal saving and borrowing. Findex is a survey run in waves (2011, 2014, 2017, 2021, 2024), so each card is a wave sparkline with the latest reading and the change since the first wave available for Bahrain.

Account ownership
82.32024
% age 15+
4 waves, 2011-2024+17.8 pp since 2011
Made or received a digital payment
77.32017
% age 15+
2 waves, 2014-2017+7.1 pp since 2014
Saved at a financial institution
30.72017
% age 15+
3 waves, 2011-2017+14.4 pp since 2011
Borrowed from a financial institution
36.32017
% age 15+
2 waves, 2014-2017-2.3 pp since 2014

Source: World Bank Global Findex Database 2025. License: CC BY 4.0. Survey waves; percent of adults age 15+. Methodology

Credit cycle

Bahrain is not in the BIS credit-statistics reporting set (a fixed group of around 44 advanced and major emerging economies), so no credit-to-GDP gap, debt-service ratio, or property-price series is available here.

Source: BIS credit and debt-service statistics | BIS residential property prices. License: free with "Source: BIS" attribution. Methodology

Policy rate and exchange rate

Bahrain is in neither the BIS central-bank policy-rate set (48 economies) nor the BIS real broad effective-exchange-rate set (63 economies), so no policy-rate or exchange-rate series is available here.

Source: BIS central bank policy rates | BIS effective exchange rates. License: free with "Source: BIS" attribution. Methodology

External accounts

Bahrain’s external position: the current-account balance (IMF, percent of GDP), the net international investment position and total official reserves (both shown as US-dollar levels, in billions, because the IMF IIP and World Bank reserve series carry dollar values rather than ratios), the degree of capital-account openness (the Chinn-Ito index, 0 closed to 1 open), and remittance inflows. A positive current account or net-IIP reading is a surplus/creditor position; a negative one is a deficit/debtor position. Each panel appears only where Bahrain has that series.

Current-account balance
5.9425
% of GDP
-20.0-10.00.0010.020.019802025
Net international investment position
27.724
US$ billion (level)
0.0020.040.019892024
Total reserves
5.2725
US$ billion
0.002.505.007.5019652025
Capital-account openness
1.002023
index, 0 = closed, 1 = open
annual, 1976 to 2023

Remittance inflows are shown as external-flow context (household income received from abroad), not a FinObservatory risk score.

Source: IMF Balance of Payments and IIP Statistics | World Bank, Total reserves (FI.RES.TOTL.CD). License: IMF and World Bank, free with attribution ("Source: IMF"; World Bank reserves CC BY 4.0). Current account and net IIP: IMF BOP/IIP, to 2025. Reserves: World Bank FI.RES.TOTL.CD, to 2025. Methodology

Source: Chinn-Ito index of capital-account openness (Chinn and Ito 2006). License: research use with citation only (Chinn-Ito); not for commercial redistribution. Capital-account openness ends 2023. Methodology

International debt securities

Outstanding international debt securities issued by Bahrain’s residents, by issuer sector, from the BIS: bonds and notes placed outside the home market (residence basis), in US-dollar billions. These are international issues only: domestic-market issuance is excluded, so this is not a country’s total debt-securities outstanding and is far smaller than its whole bond market. “All issuers” is the total; the government, financial-corporation and non-financial-corporation lines are its components, each shown only where the BIS reports it.

All issuers
$50.4B
2026-Q1
General government
$45.3B
2026-Q1
Financial corporations
$2.6B
2026-Q1
Non-financial corporations
$2.5B
2026-Q1
All issuersGeneral governmentFinancial corporationsNon-financial corporations
$0.00B$20.0B$40.0B$60.0B198519901995200020052010201520202025AllGovtFinNon-fin

Source: BIS debt securities statistics (international debt securities). License: free with "Source: BIS" attribution. International issues only (residence basis); domestic issuance excluded. Quarterly, 1983-Q3 to 2026-Q1. Methodology

Latest government debt 134.0% of GDP (2024, Central govt (IMF GDD)). Peak 134.0% in 2024. This is 53.3 points above the 80.7% median at which 2000+ sovereign crises began (a comparison, not a prediction).

Latest debt
134.0%
2024
Peak debt
134.0%
2024
Sovereign crises
0
none on record

Source: IMF Global Debt Database | IMF World Economic Outlook. License: IMF, free with "Source: IMF" attribution. Methodology

Reading this profile

  • This page composes existing FinObservatory layers; it introduces no new data. Every figure is reproducible from the source cited in its section. See the methodology for the composition and each source’s coverage and staleness.
  • The layers stop at different dates: the World Bank GFDD depth and soundness series end 2021, but the IMF FSI soundness panel is current (annual through 2024–2025 where reported); the Global Findex inclusion series are surveyed in waves and reach 2024; the crisis chronologies end around 2016–2021; IMF debt runs to 2024; the Penn World Table runs 1950–2023; and the BIS statistics are the most current (credit through 2025, residential property to 2026Q1, and the policy rate and effective exchange rate into 2026 where reported). The external accounts reach 2025 (IMF balance-of-payments and reserves), 2024 (remittance inflows) and 2023 (capital-account openness). A quiet recent tail in one section can simply be where that source stops.
  • Sections are shown only where Bahrain has data. An absent section means the underlying dataset does not cover this country, not that the value is zero.