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FinObservatory

Sovereign debt

How indebted is the world, by public and private-sector component, and how indebted were countries when crises began

Government debt to GDP for 195 countries since 1950, plus IMF Global Debt Database household and nonfinancial corporate debt where reported, the debt level at which 163 past sovereign-debt crises with a start-year debt reading actually began, and where today’s debt sits relative to that history. Debt levels are IMF; crisis dates are the same five chronologies behind the crisis atlas. This page is descriptive. For the predictive question, whether default can be forecast from fundamentals at all, see the sovereign stress test.

195
Countries with debt data
92
Countries with sovereign crises
249
Crisis episodes identified
80.7%
2000+ crisis-start median
45
Above that line now

Data as of 2024 government debt (GDD general, GDD central, then WEO fallback); 2024 GDD household and corporate debt

Defaults now (2024): 84 governments were in external default on $425.01B of debt (current US dollars, excluding domestic arrears), per the Bank of Canada–Bank of England Sovereign Default Database. BoC-BoE CRAG 2025, Bank of Canada terms (attribution).

World median debt, public and private components, 1950 onward

The median debt-to-GDP ratio across all countries reporting each series, observed years only (no IMF forecast years). Each line is a different debt perimeter over its own country sample, so levels are not directly comparable across series: general government (IMF GDD) spans 88 countries in 2024, central government 156 countries, household debt 71 countries, nonfinancial corporate debt 71 countries, and the WEO gross-debt series the widest at 191.

General government (GDD)Central government (GDD)General government (WEO)Household (GDD)Nonfinancial corporate (GDD)
% of GDP

Source: IMF Global Debt Database (Sep 2025) (Mbaye, Moreno-Badia & Chae, IMF WP/18/111) | IMF World Economic Outlook Median across reporting countries per year; sample composition changes over time. Methodology

GDD code ledger and private-debt consistency check

The Global Debt Database file behind this page has five indicator codes. Household debt (HH_LS) and nonfinancial corporate debt (NFC_LS) are charted separately here. Total private debt (PVD_LS) is kept as a check, not plotted as a third independent private series.

Compared 2,668 country-years across 86 countries from 1950 to 2024. For each row, the tolerance for HH_LS + NFC_LS versus PVD_LS is0.1 percentage points, an editorial threshold for flagging gaps in the display; not a measurement-precision claim. 7 country-years across 1 country do not; the largest gap is 7.6 pp.
CodeMeaningUnitCountriesRowsCoverageUse on this page
CG_DEBT_GDPCentral Government Debt: Total stock of debt liabilities issued by the central government as a share of GDP.Percent of GDP1748,4371950–2024Plotted directly as a government debt series.
GG_DEBT_GDPGeneral Government Debt: Total stock of debt liabilities issued by the general government as a share of GDP.Percent of GDP883,4781950–2024Plotted directly as a government debt series.
HH_LSHousehold debt, loans and debt securities: Total stock of loans and debt securities issued by households as a share of GDP.Percent of GDP862,6841950–2024Charted directly as its own private-sector component.
NFC_LSNonfinancial corporate debt, loans and debt securities: Total stock of loans and debt securities issued by nonfinancial corporations as a share of GDP.Percent of GDP862,6711950–2024Charted directly as its own private-sector component.
PVD_LSPrivate debt, loans and debt securities: Total stock of loans and debt securities issued by households and nonfinancial corporations as a share of GDP.Percent of GDP1608,3851950–2024Consistency check here and country-page fallback as private sector, aggregate (no household/corporate split published); 7 exceptions beyond the 0.1 percentage-point editorial threshold.
CountryYearHouseholdCorporateHH + NFCPVD_LSGapTolerance
Jordan202238.7%41.8%80.5%88.1%7.6 pp0.1 pp
Jordan201932.2%39.4%71.6%78.4%6.8 pp0.1 pp
Jordan202336.9%39.0%75.9%82.6%6.7 pp0.1 pp
Jordan201732.7%38.8%71.5%77.5%6.0 pp0.1 pp
Jordan201832.7%39.9%72.6%78.5%5.9 pp0.1 pp
Jordan202137.4%40.8%78.2%84.0%5.8 pp0.1 pp
Jordan202035.1%42.6%77.7%83.0%5.3 pp0.1 pp

Source: IMF Global Debt Database (Sep 2025) (Mbaye, Moreno-Badia & Chae, IMF WP/18/111) GDD consistency check: HH_LS + NFC_LS is compared with PVD_LS where all three are present. The 0.1 percentage-point cutoff is an editorial threshold for flagging gaps in the display; not a measurement-precision claim. On country pages, the fallback is labelled private sector, aggregate (no household/corporate split published). Methodology

Debt at the start of sovereign crises, by era

For each sovereign-debt crisis episode, the government debt-to-GDP ratio in the year it began. The overall median is 54.4% across 163 episodes with a debt reading, but the level has climbed sharply: crises that began in 2000 onward did so at a median of 80.7%, versus 54.4% across all history. Debt level alone is a weak crisis predictor (see the caveat below); this describes where crises started, it does not forecast where the next will.

Interquartile range (Q1 to Q3), with median2000+ crisis-start median (80.7% of GDP), the elevation benchmark

Source: IMF Global Debt Database (Sep 2025) (Mbaye, Moreno-Badia & Chae, IMF WP/18/111) | IMF World Economic Outlook | Global Macro Database 2026_06 (Müller, Xu, Lehbib & Chen 2025) | Reinhart-Rogoff via HBS BFFS; Laeven-Valencia (2020) Methodology

Countries above the modern crisis-start line

This is a factual comparison, not a prediction. The 45 countries below have latest headline debt above 80.7% of GDP, the median level at which sovereign crises of the 2000+ era began. The headline is the IMF GDD general-government reading where a country reports one and the central-government or WEO gross series otherwise, so the perimeter is named per row. It does not say any of them will have a crisis, is near one, or is safe if below the line. Default risk turns on debt composition (currency, maturity, who holds it), fiscal capacity, credit history, and market access, none of which a single ratio captures. Argentina defaulted in 2001 at 48.0% of GDP, below the 80.7% line.
#CountryDebt/GDPPerimeterYearAbove line byPast crises to 2017
1Sudan272.0%Central govt2024+191.32
2Eritrea260.4%Central govt2019+179.70
3Japan236.7%General govt2024+156.01
4Singapore177.0%Central govt2024+96.30
5Venezuela164.3%General govt2024+83.68
6Lebanon164.1%Central govt2024+83.40
7Greece150.9%General govt2024+70.24
8Libya142.7%Central govt2017+62.00
9Italy135.3%General govt2024+54.61
10Bahrain134.0%Central govt2024+53.30
11Maldives133.9%Central govt2024+53.30
12United States120.8%General govt2024+40.11
13Zambia114.9%Central govt2024+34.21
14Cape Verde113.7%Central govt2024+33.00
15Senegal113.7%Central govt2024+33.02
16France113.1%General govt2024+32.41
17Canada110.8%General govt2024+30.10
18Bhutan107.8%Central govt2024+27.10
19Belgium104.5%General govt2024+23.80
20Barbados104.4%Central govt2024+23.70
21Dominica104.3%Central govt2024+23.61
22Spain101.8%General govt2024+21.14
23United Kingdom101.3%General govt2024+20.61
24Bolivia100.9%Central govt2024+20.23
25Sri Lanka99.4%Central govt2024+18.73
26Mozambique96.6%Central govt2024+15.92
27Laos96.5%Central govt2024+15.80
28Jordan95.9%Central govt2024+15.22
29Republic of the Congo95.4%Central govt2024+14.72
30Portugal94.9%General govt2024+14.25
31Zimbabwe94.6%Central govt2024+13.92
32St-Vincent92.7%General govt2024+12.00
33Mauritius91.4%General govt2024+10.70
34Egypt90.9%General govt2024+10.23
35Ukraine89.8%General govt2024+9.12
36China88.3%General govt2024+7.61
37El Salvador87.6%General govt2024+6.95
38Brazil87.3%General govt2024+6.66
39Suriname87.2%Central govt2024+6.50
40Argentina85.3%Central govt2024+4.66
41Tunisia83.1%Central govt2024+2.44
42Finland82.5%General govt2024+1.80
43Guinea-Bissau82.3%Central govt2024+1.60
44India81.3%General govt2024+0.62
45Austria81.2%General govt2024+0.56

Source: IMF Global Debt Database (Sep 2025) (Mbaye, Moreno-Badia & Chae, IMF WP/18/111) | IMF World Economic Outlook | Global Macro Database 2026_06 (Müller, Xu, Lehbib & Chen 2025) | Reinhart-Rogoff via HBS BFFS; Laeven-Valencia (2020) Benchmark is the 2000+ crisis-start median (80.7%); headline debt is the latest reading from the IMF GDD-general, GDD-central, WEO fallback chain, with the perimeter named per row. Crisis counts come from chronologies that end in 2017 (GMD, Laeven-Valencia) and 2016 (Reinhart-Rogoff), so defaults after those dates, Lebanon and Suriname in 2020 among them, are not counted here. Methodology

Highest government debt today

Top 15 countries by latest headline government debt to GDP, each on the perimeter named beside it. Japan ranks 3rd at 236.7%. A high ratio held mostly in domestic currency by domestic savers behaves very differently from externally held foreign-currency debt. High debt is a vulnerability, not a verdict.

  1. 1Sudan272.0%
  2. 2Eritrea260.4%
  3. 3Japan236.7%
  4. 4Singapore177.0%
  5. 5Venezuela164.3%
  6. 6Lebanon164.1%
  7. 7Greece150.9%
  8. 8Libya142.7%
  9. 9Italy135.3%
  10. 10Bahrain134.0%
  11. 11Maldives133.9%
  12. 12United States120.8%
  13. 13Zambia114.9%
  14. 14Cape Verde113.7%
  15. 15Senegal113.7%

Source: IMF Global Debt Database (Sep 2025) (Mbaye, Moreno-Badia & Chae, IMF WP/18/111) | IMF World Economic Outlook Headline is the latest reading from the IMF GDD-general, GDD-central, WEO fallback chain, with the perimeter named per row; Singapore's ratio reflects gross debt issued for asset-management purposes (SGS/SSGS), not net borrowing. Methodology

Country debt profiles

Every country’s full debt trajectory, crisis history, and where it sits against the crisis-start benchmark. A few to start: GRC, ARG, JPN, USA, ITA, LBN. The headline series label (General govt (IMF GDD), Central govt (IMF GDD), General govt gross (IMF WEO, April 2026 edition)) is shown per country so you always know which perimeter you are reading.