Who Owes the Most?

Official government debt figures don't always tell the full story. Some countries bury borrowing in state-owned enterprises, off-balance-sheet vehicles, or local government financing platforms. Our Public Debt Ranking uses the broadest available measure for each country.

For each country, we first check if the IMF's Global Debt Database reports Nonfinancial Public Sector Debt — the broadest measure that includes state-owned enterprises. If not available, we fall back to the General Government Gross Debt from the World Economic Outlook. For China, we use the IMF's Augmented Debt figure from their Article IV consultation, which captures the massive Local Government Financing Vehicle (LGFV) borrowing that official numbers exclude.

China's official government debt is reported at around 88% of GDP. But the IMF estimates the true figure — including LGFVs, policy bank lending, and other quasi-fiscal activities — at 124% of GDP. That's a $6 trillion gap between official and augmented debt. Our ranking uses the augmented figure because it reflects the actual fiscal risk.

Countries where we could only obtain General Government data (excluding SOEs) are flagged. Brazil, for example, uses the broader Nonfinancial Public Sector measure — capturing Petrobras and other state enterprise debt — while Germany uses the narrower General Government figure.