Government Debt to GDP, List by Country

The highest gross Government debt as a percentage of GDP among countries tracked by Trading Economics was recorded in Japan (220% of GDP), Greece (143%) and Italy (119%). Debt to GDP ratio was also high in Singapore, Belgium, Ireland, United States and Portugal - above 90%. In Iceland, Euro Area, Sri Lanka, Canada, Germany, France, Hungary, United Kingdom, Israel, Egypt, Austria and Brazil, public debt was recorded between 70% and 80% of GDP. Government debt as a percent of GDP, also known as debt-to-GDP ratio, is the amount of national debt a country has in percentage of its Gross Domestic Product. Basically, Government debt is the money owed by the central government to its creditors. There are two types of government debt: net and gross. Gross debt is the accumulation of outstanding government debt which may be in the form of government bonds, credit default swaps, currency swaps, special drawing rights, loans, insurance and pensions. Net debt is the difference between gross debt and the financial assets that government holds. The higher the debt-to-GDP ratio, the less likely the country will pay its debt back, and more likely the country is to default on its debt obligations.

Country	Latest	2010	2009	2008	2007	2000
Japan	220.30	220.30	216.30	195.00	187.70	142.10
Greece	142.80	142.80	127.10	110.70	105.40	103.40
Italy	119.00	119.00	116.10	106.30	103.60	109.20
Singapore	97.20	97.20	105.00	97.20	85.90	81.20
Belgium	96.80	96.80	96.20	89.60	84.20	107.90
Ireland	96.20	96.20	65.60	44.40	25.00	37.80
United States	93.20	93.20	84.20	69.40	64.40	57.30
Portugal	93.00	93.00	83.00	71.60	68.30	48.50
Iceland	87.80		87.80	70.50	28.50	41.00
Euro Area	85.10	85.10	79.30	69.90	66.20	69.10
Sri Lanka	85.00				85.00	96.90
Canada	84.00	84.00	83.40	71.30	66.50	82.10
Germany	83.20	83.20	73.50	66.30	64.90	59.70
France	81.70	81.70	78.30	67.70	63.90	57.30
Hungary	80.20	80.20	78.40	72.30	66.10	54.90
United Kingdom	80.00	80.00	69.60	54.40	44.50	41.00
Israel	77.90	77.90	80.40	76.80	77.70	85.50
Egypt	73.80	73.80	75.60	74.70	87.10
Austria	72.30	72.30	69.60	63.80	60.70	66.50
India	69.20	69.20	71.10	73.00	73.00	71.40
Brazil	66.10	66.10	67.90	70.70	65.20	66.70
Mongolia	64.80		64.80		46.90	81.90
Netherlands	63.70	63.70	60.80	58.20	45.30	53.80
Spain	60.10	60.10	53.20	39.80	36.10	59.30
Pakistan	56.80	56.80	57.30	58.70	54.60	83.00
Poland	55.00	55.00	50.90	47.10	45.00	36.80
Switzerland	55.00	55.00	54.90	54.90	57.20	61.10
Malaysia	54.20	54.20	55.40	42.80	42.70	35.30
Vietnam	52.80	52.80	51.20	42.90	44.60
Kenya	50.50	50.50	49.40	46.20	46.10	52.80
Morocco	49.90	49.90	47.70	48.20	54.60	73.70
Finland	48.40	48.40	43.80	34.10	35.20	43.80
Argentina	47.80	47.80	57.60	58.10	67.70	45.00
Philippines	47.30	47.30	49.20	48.70	47.80	62.10
Latvia	44.70	44.70	36.70	19.70	9.00	12.30
Norway	44.70	44.70	43.10	49.10	51.50	34.20
Thailand	44.10	44.10	45.20	37.30	38.30	57.80
Tanzania	43.80	43.80	40.90	40.10	42.40
Denmark	43.60	43.60	41.80	34.50	27.50	52.40
Mexico	42.70	42.70	44.60	43.00	37.80	42.60
Turkey	41.70	41.70	45.40	39.50	39.40	51.30
Ghana	41.20	41.20	39.20	34.30	31.50	125.40
Slovakia	41.00	41.00	35.40	27.80	29.60	50.30
Ukraine	40.50	40.50	35.30	20.50	12.30	45.30
Tunisia	40.40	40.40	42.90	43.30	45.90	65.90
Sweden	39.80	39.80	42.80	38.80	40.20	53.90
Taiwan	39.70	39.70	39.90	36.00	33.30	25.40
Slovenia	38.80	38.80	35.20	21.90	23.10	26.80
Venezuela	38.70	38.70	32.70	24.60	30.90	31.90
Czech Republic	38.50	38.50	35.30	30.00	29.00	18.50
Lithuania	38.20	38.20	29.50	15.60	16.90	23.70
Bolivia	37.40	37.40	40.50	37.50	41.00	66.90
Colombia	36.50	36.50	36.20	31.00	32.70	36.30
South Africa	35.70	35.70	30.90	26.80	27.40	42.00
Mozambique	32.00	32.00	28.60	34.40	41.90	131.90
New Zealand	31.60	31.60	26.10	20.30	17.40	31.40
Angola	31.40	31.40	34.80	29.50	22.70	104.50
South Korea	30.86	30.86	32.56	29.03	29.65	16.73
Romania	30.80	30.80	23.60	13.40	12.60	22.50
Bangladesh	27.70			27.70	29.70	32.20
Indonesia	26.90	26.90	28.60	33.20	36.90	95.10
Macedonia	24.60	24.60	23.80	20.60	24.00	47.90
Peru	24.30	24.30	26.60	25.00	30.90
Rwanda	23.90	23.90	20.20	21.20	26.90	102.50
Australia	22.30	22.30	17.60	11.60	9.50	19.30
United Arab Emirates	21.00	21.00	22.50	12.50	7.80	3.10
Namibia	18.50	18.50	15.40	17.30	19.00	19.90
Luxembourg	18.40	18.40	14.60	13.60	6.70	6.20
Qatar	17.80	17.80	26.60	9.20	8.00	55.00
China	17.70	17.70	17.70	17.00	19.60	16.40
Nigeria	16.40	16.40	15.20	11.60	12.80	84.20
Bulgaria	16.20	16.20	14.60	13.70	17.20	72.50
Paraguay	15.00	15.00	18.00	19.10	21.90	40.70
Botswana	13.20	13.20	13.40	6.40	7.10	8.00
Kazakhstan	11.40	11.40	10.40	6.70	5.90
Saudi Arabia	10.80	10.80	16.00	13.20	18.50	87.20
Russia	9.90	9.90	11.00	7.90	8.50	59.90
Chile	8.80	8.80	6.20	5.20	4.10	13.70
Estonia	6.60	6.60	7.20	4.60	3.70	5.10
Hong Kong	4.80	4.80	3.30	1.30	1.60
Algeria	1.20	1.20	1.50	1.50	0.70	44.90

Export data csv

Notes:
Government Debt to GDP in the table above shows gross Government debt as a percentage of GDP except Algeria (net government debt as a percentage of GDP) and Bangladesh (external debt as a % of GNI). The main source of the data is the International Monetary Fund except European Union countries and Turkey (Eurostat), United States (U.S. Bureau of the Public Debt), Bangladesh (Asian Development Bank), Mongolia (the World Bank) and Sri Lanka (the World Bank).

Global Economic News

Japan’s Trade Deficit Widens in January
Published: 2/20/2012 10:53:57 AM By: TradingEconomics.com, Ministry of Finance Japan
Japan’s trade deficit widened to a record level in January, as falling exports combined with surging imports of energy.

U.S. Annual Inflation Rate Down to 2.9% in January
Published: 2/17/2012 7:16:50 PM By: TradingEconomics.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.2 percent in January on a seasonally adjusted basis, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 2.9 percent before seasonal adjustment

Canada's Annual Inflation Rate Up to 2.5% in January
Published: 2/17/2012 7:14:14 PM By: TradingEconomics.com, Statistics Canada
Consumer prices rose 2.5% in the 12 months to January, led by increases for food and energy. The January rise followed a 2.3% increase in December.

Australia's Unemployment Rate Down to 5.1% in January
Published: 2/16/2012 1:14:57 PM By: TradingEconomics.com, ABS
Australia's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate decreased 0.1 percentage points to 5.1 per cent in January, as announced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

Euro Area Trade Surplus Widens in December
Published: 2/15/2012 12:31:14 PM By: TradingEconomics.com, Eurostat
The first estimate for the euro area (EA17) trade in goods balance with the rest of the world in December 2011 gave a 9.7 bn euro surplus, compared with -1.7 bn in December 2010.

U.K. Unemployment Rate at 8.4% in December
Published: 2/15/2012 10:47:34 AM By: TradingEconomics.com, ONS
U.K. unemployment rate was 8.4 per cent of the economically active population, up 0.1 on the quarter. There were 2.67 million unemployed people, up 48,000 on the quarter. The unemployment rate has not been higher since 1995.

Euro Area GDP Down by 0.3% in Q4
Published: 2/15/2012 10:08:12 AM By: TradingEconomics.com, Eurostat
Euro Area GDP fell by 0.3% in both the euro area (EA17) and the EU271 during the fourth quarter of 2011, compared with the previous quarter, according to flash estimates published by Eurostat. In the third quarter of 2011, growth rates were +0.1% and +0.3% respectively.

Bank of Japan Announces New Stimulus
Published: 2/14/2012 11:38:02 AM By: TradingEconomics.com, Bank of Japan
The Bank of Japan on February 14th further eased monetary policy, increasing its asset purchase programme by 10 trillion yen to about 65 trillion yen, as it looks to end deflation.

U.K. Inflation Rate Drops to 3.6% in January
Published: 2/14/2012 11:20:43 AM By: TradingEconomics.com, ONS
U.K. prices rose at an annual rate of 3.6% in January, official figures show, slower than the 4.2% rate recorded the month earlier.

Japan GDP Contracts 0.6% in Q4
Published: 2/13/2012 11:08:06 AM By: TradingEconomics.com, Cabinet Office
Japan's economy shrank 0.6 percent in the October-December quarter compared with the previous three months as slowing global trade, a strong currency and disruption from severe floods in Thailand all took their toll.