Sri Lanka

Official risk classification

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). Shaded bands are sovereign-debt crisis years.

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

Quarterly debt (World Bank QPSD)

A higher-frequency companion to the annual IMF figures above: central government gross debt, quarter by quarter, from the World Bank Quarterly Public Sector Debt database. Sri Lanka does not report the general-government perimeter to QPSD, so this is central government (a narrower perimeter that excludes state, local and social-security debt).

QPSD and the annual IMF WEO/GDD series are not the same measure: coverage of the public sector and the valuation of instruments (nominal, face or market value) can differ, so a quarterly QPSD reading and an annual IMF reading for the same period need not match. Read the quarterly line as within-year timing, not as a re-statement of the annual ratio.

Source: World Bank Quarterly Public Sector Debt (QPSD) World Bank QPSD, CC BY 4.0. Central government gross debt, percent of GDP; 2010Q4 to 2025Q2. Methodology

External debt (World Bank IDS)

External debt owed to non-residents, from the World Bank’s International Debt Statistics, which covers low- and middle-income economies only (Sri Lanka is classified Lower middle income). Dollar figures are current US dollars; ratio figures are percentages, as labelled. This is external debt in USD, a different measure from the government debt-to-GDP ratios above; do not compare the two directly.

Source: World Bank International Debt Statistics (IDS) World Bank IDS, CC BY 4.0. Units: current US dollars (.CD series) and percent (.ZS series); repayment-schedule years beyond 2024 excluded. Methodology

Debt in default (BoC-BoE CRAG)

Stock of Sri Lanka’s government debt in default in 2024, from the Bank of Canada–Bank of England Sovereign Default Database, broken down by creditor class. The external total is $30.06B (current US dollars, excluding domestic arrears, matching the database’s published headline).

In default (external) for 42 distinct years between 1971 and 2024. Peak external default stock: $38.62B.

Source: BoC-BoE Sovereign Default Database 2025 (Beers, Ndukwe & Berry, Bank of Canada SAN 2025-24) BoC-BoE Sovereign Default Database, Bank of Canada terms (free use with attribution). Units: current US dollars; total excludes domestic arrears. Methodology

Sovereign-debt crisis history

Each episode with the government debt-to-GDP ratio in its start year, where a reading exists. Episode dates use the same merge as the crisis atlas (consecutive crisis years bridged across gaps of up to two years).

• 20142000 onward
  Debt at start: 69.6% (Central govt (IMF GDD))episode →
• 19961980–1999
  Debt at start: 76.2% (Central govt (IMF GDD))episode →
• 1979–19831950–1979
  Debt at start: 56.2% (Central govt (IMF GDD))episode →

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 Sri Lanka 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.