Kosovo

Latest government debt 16.9% of GDP (2024, General govt (IMF GDD)). No sovereign-debt crisis in the chronologies.

Kosovo’s latest debt of 16.9% is below 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 one of the world’s highest ratios 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

Kosovo is not in the OECD Country Risk Classification set, so no export-credit risk category is recorded. The classification covers the countries the OECD Arrangement participants price export credit for; absence here is a coverage limit, not a zero-risk signal.

Debt to GDP trajectory

Debt to GDP by perimeter, observed years only (no IMF forecast years). Household and nonfinancial corporate IMF GDD series are plotted separately where reported. Where neither component is reported, the private sector, aggregate (no household/corporate split published) is shown as a coverage fallback, not as a third private component. No sovereign-debt crisis years fall in this window.

General government (GDD)Central government (GDD)General government (WEO)

% of GDP

Source: IMF Global Debt Database (Mbaye, Moreno-Badia & Chae, IMF WP/18/111) | IMF World Economic Outlook Debt is % of GDP; household and nonfinancial corporate GDD series are plotted separately. Where both components are unavailable, the fallback is private sector, aggregate (no household/corporate split published). Crisis-year shading comes from the sovereign-debt chronologies. Methodology

Debt profile

Latest by perimeter

General government (IMF GDD): 16.9% (2024)
Central government (IMF GDD): 16.9% (2024)
General gov gross (IMF WEO, April 2026 edition): 17.9% (2024)

History

Peak debt: 22.5% (2020)
Sovereign crises: 0
Vs 2000+ crisis-start median: -63.8

External debt (World Bank IDS)

No IDS external-debt series for Kosovo. The World Bank’s International Debt Statistics is compiled from the Debtor Reporting System, so a country is covered only while it reports to that system.

Debt in default (BoC-BoE CRAG)

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

Sovereign-debt crisis history

No sovereign-debt crisis is recorded for Kosovo 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 Kosovo 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 1950) the GMD historical series.
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.