Wherever you’re from, chances are your government owes a whole lot of money on your behalf. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) reckons global public debt now exceeds $100 trillion (£79tn), or about 93% of the world’s economic output – and even thinks this figure will be close to 100% of global GDP by the end of this decade. 

What’s more, servicing that debt is getting more expensive. After years of artificially low interest rates, borrowing costs are returning to normal levels and bond yields – the rates governments must offer their creditors – are often rising too. Debts can devour a major slice of national income and sometimes cost more than the entire budgets of departments such as education. 

Read on to discover how much debt repayments are costing 25 countries around the world, ranked from the lowest burden to the highest.

Figures are from the 2024 Debt Data Portal (DDP) compiled by UK charity Debt Justice. All dollar amounts in US dollars.

First up is China which spends 1.6% of government revenues on servicing its debt, according to the DDP. Countries usually report their debt as a proportion of their economic output, or Gross Domestic Product (GDP). However, Debt Justice argues it's better to measure it by the proportion of government income it consumes since this takes into account the interest rates a country pays. 

In China’s case, the proportion looks modest, though the figure might flatter Beijing because so much of its debt is thought to be ‘hidden’ – held by local authorities and arms-length bodies, which means it's missing from the central statistics.

The IMF puts Australia’s general government gross debt at over 49% of its GDP, which is less than it was during the height of the pandemic but considerably more than it was before that. Servicing it – including interest and any principal repaid – now takes up 3% of the government’s revenues. 

To put that into context, the government’s own figures show interest payments alone of some AUS$23.9 billion ($15bn/£11.9bn) in 2024 – more than half of what the country currently spends on defence. 

Brazil is also paying 3% of its government revenues in debt costs, but it’s far from certain it can keep the burden in this relatively comfortable territory. Brazil’s central bank says gross debt reached $1.6 trillion (£1.3tn) at the end of last year and would have been even higher had it not sold a record amount of dollar reserves.

Debt has risen for the last two years under the administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (pictured). It's likely to rise further this year and what’s more, about half is linked to a benchmark interest rate that the treasury is now aggressively hiking in its bid to tame inflation, so repayment costs will rise accordingly. 

India’s debt costs rose sharply in 2024 – to 4.3% from just 3.1% the previous year. The government is hoping the country’s very high growth will come to the rescue and reduce the debt burden relative to the size of the economy over the next few years. However, it’s also keen to tackle its fiscal deficit and to reduce taxes to encourage consumption, so the funds available for debt servicing might not rise as much as GDP.

In the meantime, the central government is putting aside over four times as much for servicing debts this year as it will spend on pensions and other retirement benefits.  

The World Bank praises Peru for its low public debt and this seems to be reflected in generally stable servicing costs, which total 4.7% of government revenue. They have been around this level since before the pandemic – except for in 2023, which was an unusually difficult year due to extreme weather events and low business confidence. 

Most of Peru’s debt is at fixed interest rates and has an average maturity of 12 years, so the country has been insulated from some of the tightening finances of recent years. However, it has only modest growth to look forward to, and as the government is reluctant to hike costs for the lucrative mining sector, its tax receipts are among the lowest in Latin America.  

Despite being in the economic doldrums, Germany is viewed as highly creditworthy and its bond yields are a benchmark within Europe to which other countries’ greater debt costs – or so-called spreads – are compared. Yet its own liabilities, while still relatively modest, have been growing in the last few years and now account for 5% of government revenue, according to Debt Justice. 

Politicians from both the country’s main parties are becoming increasingly open to reforming its ‘debt brake’ that limits what the government can borrow, so the famous economic discipline may be watered down in future. Meanwhile, federal government figures show debt servicing in the first half of 2024 cost the country more than double what it spent on roads and railways. 

UK debt has risen substantially in recent years and now stands at over £2.8 trillion ($3.5tn) – roughly the same as the country’s entire economic output. The government also has a budget deficit, meaning Britain is among the countries that borrow just to cover routine expenditure. There’s little sign of an imminent change in direction and bond yields are rising as investors demand more in return for lending their money.   

In December 2024 alone, the interest Britain paid on its bonds (known as gilts) was £8.3 billion ($10.3bn) – almost £4 billion more than in December 2023. For this financial year as a whole, the government has set aside £109 billion ($135bn) for debt servicing. This is almost as much as the housing, environment and defence budgets put together. 

At first glance, Turkish debt isn't too alarming. The Turkish government says it stood at $281.5 billion (£227bn) in 2024, while the IMF expresses it as just over a quarter of GDP. Nevertheless, it's increased by over a third since 2023. Perhaps even more worryingly, more than half of it is denominated in foreign currencies, meaning it becomes increasingly burdensome as the Turkish Lira loses value, as it has tended to do in recent years. 

Consequently, a significant slice of Ankara’s revenues must be allocated to servicing the national debt. According to Debt Justice, that slice was 6.9% in 2024.

The Philippines' debt costs are equal to over 7% of revenues. Compared to percentages seen in the recent past, this is very affordable – early in the century repayments consumed almost half of the government’s income. The authorities says its obligations are now comfortable.

Still, they represented some $280 billion (£221bn) at the end of 2024, or just over the 60% threshold that’s deemed a manageable limit for developing countries. As in many other countries, one problem is that a big chunk of the debt derives from short-term bonds that were issued throughout the pandemic. These will mature soon and if the debt has to be refinanced, it will now attract considerably higher interest. 

Mexico’s economy faces uncertain times as exports to its biggest trading partner, the United States, come under intense scrutiny from the White House. Its government has also been spending a lot to bolster the indebted state oil company Pemex. Partly in response to this, the credit ratings agency Moody’s has downgraded the country’s debt outlook from ‘stable’ to ‘negative’. 

The government calculates its debt at over half of GDP, or some $900 billion (£712bn) dollars. The cost of financing it this year will be 7.6% of all its revenues, according to Debt Justice. 

Italy's public debt exceeded three trillion euros ($3.1tn/£2.5tn) late last year. At over 136% of the country’s GDP, only Greece has a higher debt-to-GDP ratio within the eurozone, though the percentage figure has been even higher in the past. Sluggish growth seems to be causing the relative amount to rise once again.   

As for the repayment cost, this stands at 7.8% of revenues and Debt Justice says it’s been rising steadily since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. The European Commission has another way of expressing it, recording it as around 4% of Italy's GDP. This would be more than the nation spends on education. 

Japan records an identical repayment figure as a proportion of revenue – but has much bigger debt in absolute terms. Now at a record $8.7 trillion (£7tn), the country owes more than double its economic output and has the highest proportionate borrowing of any advanced economy. Much of the increase is attributed to defence and social security costs.

By the reckoning of Debt Justice, the interest on this gargantuan debt is almost 8% of government revenues and it’s set to get higher, especially as Japan’s central bank has begun raising interest rates. Almost a quarter of the draft 2025 budget is allocated to debt servicing – more than the money available for education, public works and defence combined. 

New Zealand’s debt burden has risen steeply since the pandemic; government figures in late 2024 showed gross debt to be equivalent to $108.6 billion (£87.5bn) and just over 45% of GDP. That’s well below the OECD average but far more than the 15-25% that was generally considered prudent before the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Debt Justice says the government spends 9% of its income servicing this debt, up from just 1.2% in 2022. That would reflect the current sluggish economy and the rising cost of borrowing since the pandemic. To put the figure into context, it’s about half of what the government spends on public health. 

Canadian debt as a proportion of the economy has fallen a little since the pandemic but still weighed in at a hefty 106% of GDP in 2024, according to the IMF. And at 9.3% of government income the same year, the share of government revenue it gobbles up has been steadily increasing. 

To put a cash figure on it, in 2023, the federal government spent the equivalent of $32.5 billion (£25.7bn) on servicing its debt – around half as much again as the $21.8 billion (£17.2bn) that it spent on childcare benefits. This would not have included the interest that provincial and territorial governments paid on their own debts. 

France is in trouble. Prime Minister François Bayrou (pictured) says its debts are like a Sword of Damocles over the country, and the numbers support him. The amount Paris owes is now around 3.3 trillion euros ($3.4tn/£2.75tn), which is some 112% of GDP – almost double the limit it should keep to according to its eurozone obligations. The credit rating agency Moody’s expects debt to go on rising until at least 2030. 

High pension and social security spending are the main problem; France can’t fund this with taxes alone so it has to borrow more each year just to pay its way. Debt Justice says the result is a debt costing 9.4% of revenues to service. Quoting French government data, the finance website Commodity.com adds that repayments are $62.2 billion (£50.1bn) a year, or nearly $2,000 (£1.6k) a second. 

Spain’s debt as a proportion of output is easing, thanks to steady economic growth that some of its European neighbours can only dream of. Even so, it amounted to over 104% of GDP in late 2024, or around $1.82 trillion (£1.46tn). According to the DDP’s figures, it costs 9.5% of revenues each year just to maintain. 

This year, Madrid expects to add another €60 billion ($62.5bn/£50bn) to its debt pile – three times the new debt that it issued just six years ago. 

Colombia is the first country on our list that spends more than 10% of its revenues juggling debts. The nation's figure was 10.4% in 2024 and Debt Justice expects it to rise by more than another percentage point this year. The total debt itself worked out at over $232 billion (£183bn). 

Reliant on coal and oil exports, Colombia is vulnerable to commodity shocks, which could seriously impact its ability to pay creditors. The latest government budget – forced through by decree – allocates some 112.6 trillion Pesos ($27.3bn/£21.9bn) to debt servicing, around a third more than it allocates to investment. 

South Africa’s debt cost a significant 12.2% of government revenue in 2024, and debt servicing costs are the fastest-growing item in the budget. IMF figures show gross borrowings have skyrocketed since the noughties, amounting to 75% of the country’s GDP last year.

To put that into perspective, the country’s 2024 budget shows estimated debt servicing costs for this financial year at the equivalent of $20.6 billion (£16.6bn) while the government expects to raise $40 billion (£32bn) in personal income tax. In other words, South African debt could cost more than half of what every worker pays in tax. What's more, projections for 2025/6 show debt costs are likely to grow in the near future.

America is the biggest economy in the world, and it’s also the most indebted in absolute terms. The federal government currently owes a gargantuan $36.2 trillion (£29tn). It’s worth reminding ourselves what that is: 36.2 million million dollars, around 123% of the country’s massive GDP. 

The Congressional Budget Office says interest on the debt cost $881 billion (£705bn) last year – close to what the superpower spent on defence. Debt Justice describes it as 12.5% of government revenues. These figures are likely to rise further since there's little sign that Washington’s addiction to borrowing is easing off.

In 2001, Argentina made the biggest default in modern history on around $102 billion (£80.6bn) of borrowing. After that, it was frozen out of credit markets, but under its current libertarian president, Javier Milei (pictured), it’s trying to regain investors’ confidence with a balanced budget and an “unbreakable” rule that debt repayments must be made before allocating spending anywhere else. 

According to Debt Justice, those repayments consumed 18.9% of government income in 2024, but this figure is likely to tumble to 5.3% next year as the radical – and painful – reforms take effect. In dollar terms, though, repayments are still likely to be over $17 billion (£13.6bn). By way of comparison, Argentina only mustered just over $2 billion (£1.6bn) for defence in 2024, so its debt costs are apparently over eight times more. 

Panama’s economy is expected to grow solidly this year but it faces strong headwinds from its mounting debt burden, which was partly responsible for ratings agency Fitch downgrading its credit rating to junk status last year. Uncertainties over the future of the Panama Canal – the country’s main foreign revenue earner – have since added to the dilemma. 

Another problem is that Panama suffers from high levels of tax evasion, meaning that servicing its approximately $50 billion (£40bn) of debt takes up a greater share of the government’s income than it should do. Debt Justice says the cost was almost a quarter of revenues in 2024. 

Sudan is in deep trouble. The ongoing conflict between government forces and rebels has displaced 12 million people, while two-thirds of the population needs humanitarian assistance. It’s hardly any surprise that the economy is in tatters too. The IMF recorded Sudan's debt at a staggering 344.4% of GDP in 2024 – higher than any other country in the world. 

As a result, debt costs now take up nearly 42% of government revenues, according to Debt Justice. It adds that the country is in debt crisis and is likely to remain there, meaning debt levels undermine its ability to cater for basic needs such as healthcare, education and social protections.

The woes of neighbouring Egypt are reflected in an even higher debt servicing burden of almost 43% of government revenues. The share of spending has risen extremely steeply and rapidly: as recently as 2015 it was less than 5%. Although the economy is gradually recovering after a severe currency and balance of payments crisis, the IMF expects gross debt to remain at almost 85% of economic output this year.  

This means Egypt is seriously constrained in its ability to develop and flourish. According to Ministry of Finance figures published by global business advisory group FrontierView, the projected debt servicing bill will reach $36.3 billion (£29.1bn) this financial year – or four times as much as Egypt spends on investment. 

Debt servicing is Pakistan’s largest single outlay. It cost the country $18.42 billion (£14.8bn) alone in the final half of 2024. The next biggest outlay was the military budget at a comparatively meagre $3.2 billion (£2.6bn) for the same period. In other words, Islamabad spent more than five times as much on its debts as on its defences. Development spending was much lower still.

Debt Justice puts the overall repayment burden at 43.4% of revenues – almost four times the proportion that it consumed before the pandemic – and says Pakistan is firmly in debt crisis.

With debt gobbling up nearly two-thirds of its government revenue, Africa’s second-largest crude oil exporter is the most vulnerable economy of all in the Debt Justice index. The charity expects Angola's burden to become even heavier this year as its main export market, China, is buying less of its black gold.  

For its part, the World Bank records Angola’s total debts at over $57 billion (£45.9bn), with China, the IMF and the Bank itself the biggest individual creditors. Chinese lenders granted a three-year moratorium on repayments but that ended in 2023, just as Angola's oil revenues went into decline. It goes without saying that Angola is in debt crisis, spending more on keeping afloat in its ocean of debt than on any other spending priority. 

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