Bahrain

Latest government debt 134.0% of GDP (2024, Central govt (IMF GDD)). No sovereign-debt crisis in the chronologies.

Bahrain’s latest debt of 134.0% is 53.3 points above the 80.7% median at which sovereign crises of the 2000+ era began. This is a comparison, not a prediction. A country can default well below these medians (Argentina defaulted in 2001 at 48.0% of GDP) or carry the world’s highest ratio without defaulting (Japan, above 230%). Default risk turns on debt composition, fiscal capacity, credit history and market access, not the level alone.

Official risk classification

Current classification

Category 6 of 7

0 = exempt, 1 = lowest risk, 7 = highest · as of Jun 26, 2026

Effective	Classification
Jan 29, 2021	Category 6 of 7current
Feb 4, 2019	Category 5 of 7
Mar 31, 2011	Category 4 of 7
Apr 2, 2010	Category 3 of 7
Oct 20, 2006	Category 2 of 7
Jan 1, 1999	Category 3 of 7

The CRC scores the likelihood a country services its external debt on an eight-step scale, from 0 to 7, and sets the minimum premiums the OECD Arrangement participants charge on officially supported export credit. Categories 1 to 7 are the risk ladder (1 lowest, 7 highest). Category 0, and the blank status the OECD has used for these countries since 2013, mark high-income OECD and high-income euro-area economies that are exempt because their credit is priced on market terms. An exempt status is unclassified by design, not a data gap and not a zero-risk rating.

Source: OECD, Country Risk Classifications of the Participants to the Arrangement on Officially Supported Export Credits OECD CRC, free reuse with attribution. Category is an ordinal 0-7 risk step, not a probability; 0 and blank denote exemption. Methodology

Debt trajectory, 1980 onward

Debt to GDP by perimeter, observed years only (no IMF forecast years). Central-government debt is mechanically below general government (it excludes state, local and social-security debt). No sovereign-debt crisis years fall in this window.

Central government (GDD)General government (WEO)Private non-financial (GDD)

Source: IMF Global Debt Database (Mbaye, Moreno-Badia & Chae, IMF WP/18/111) | IMF World Economic Outlook Debt is % of GDP; crisis-year shading from the sovereign-debt chronologies. Methodology

Debt profile

Latest by perimeter

Central government (IMF GDD): 134.0% (2024)
General gov gross (IMF WEO, April 2026 edition): 133.7% (2024)
Private non-financial (IMF GDD): 86.2% (2024)

History

Peak debt: 134.0% (2024)
Sovereign crises: 0
Vs 2000+ crisis-start median: +53.3

External debt (World Bank IDS)

No IDS external-debt series for Bahrain. The World Bank’s International Debt Statistics covers low- and middle-income borrowing economies only, so high-income economies are absent by construction.

Debt in default (BoC-BoE CRAG)

No external debt in default recorded for Bahrain in the BoC-BoE Sovereign Default Database (1960 onward).

Sovereign-debt crisis history

No sovereign-debt crisis is recorded for Bahrain in the five chronologies.

Source: Global Macro Database 2026_06 (Müller, Xu, Lehbib & Chen 2025) | Reinhart-Rogoff via HBS BFFS | Laeven & Valencia (2020) Methodology

Restructuring history and creditor losses

No sovereign-debt restructuring on record for Bahrain in the Cruces–Trebesch haircut database (1815 to present).

Reading this profile

Debt levels mix perimeters. The headline and debt-at-start figures fall back through IMF general government, then central government, then WEO gross debt, then (before 1980) the GMD historical series. Central-government readings understate the general-government ratio.
Crisis flags end in 2016 (Reinhart-Rogoff) and 2017 (GMD, Laeven-Valencia), while debt runs to 2024. “Years since last crisis” and the absence of recent crises reflect where the sources stop, not a guarantee of calm.
Debt level is a weak predictor of default on its own; see the methodology for the debt-intolerance evidence and the full construction.