According to the International Monetary Fund’s World Economic Outlook database (April 2026), the countries with the most government debt relative to the size of their economies in 2025 were Venezuela, with gross general government debt of 308.7% of GDP, Japan with 206.5% and Sudan with 187.6%. Singapore, Bahrain, Greece, Lebanon, Italy, Senegal and the Maldives complete the top 10. Measured in dollars rather than as a share of GDP, the United States has by far the largest debt of any country: its federal debt passed $38 trillion on 23 October 2025, yet at 123.9% of GDP it ranks just outside the top 10, in 11th place. This countdown runs from 10th to 1st and explains the reason behind each figure.
The IMF figures measure debt owed by the whole general government, meaning central, regional and local governments and social security funds, which makes countries with different federal structures comparable. Dividing by GDP shows how heavy the debt is against the income of the economy that has to carry it. For scale, European Union members agreed under the Stability and Growth Pact to keep gross government debt at no more than 60% of GDP; every country in this table is more than twice that.
| Rank | Country | Gross government debt, 2025 (% of GDP) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Venezuela | 308.7% |
| 2 | Japan | 206.5% |
| 3 | Sudan | 187.6% |
| 4 | Singapore | 171.3% |
| 5 | Bahrain | 147.6% |
| 6 | Greece | 145.7% |
| 7 | Lebanon | 139.4% |
| 8 | Italy | 137.1% |
| 9 | Senegal | 130.2% |
| 10 | Maldives | 125.4% |
No. 10 to No. 8: the Maldives, Senegal and Italy
10. Maldives, 125.4%. The Maldives is a small island economy built on one industry. Tourism accounts for about 28% of GDP and more than 60% of foreign exchange receipts, and over 90% of government tax revenue comes from import duties and tourism-related taxes. Large infrastructure projects, costly social programmes and persistent budget deficits have left the country with external debt widely described as unsustainable, and the government has had to grapple with concerns about falling into a debt trap with China. An economy this narrow has little room to absorb a shock such as a fall in visitor numbers.
9. Senegal, 130.2%. Senegal’s debt figures have been reassessed since the 2024 presidential election, won by Bassirou Diomaye Faye, a former tax official: a 2025 report from the British bank Barclays put the country’s public debt at 119% of GDP for 2024, and the IMF’s figure for 2025 is higher still. It is a sharp reversal for a country that earlier received relief under the IMF’s Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative. Senegal’s hopes now rest partly on new revenue: its first offshore oil came from the Sangomar field, about 100 km south of Dakar, on 11 June 2024.
8. Italy, 137.1%. Italy has the third-largest economy in the European Union and the highest debt ratio of any of the EU’s large economies. Heavy government spending from the 1980s onwards drove the debt up, and it was already 104% of GDP in 1992, when the Maastricht criteria pushed Rome to try to rein it in. Italy was then among the countries hit hardest by the 2008–2009 recession and the European debt crisis that followed. Its net debt, after subtracting the government’s own financial assets, is 127.7% of GDP.
No. 7 to No. 5: Lebanon, Greece and Bahrain
7. Lebanon, 139.4%. Lebanon’s debt is tied to a banking collapse and currency crisis. A liquidity crisis became fully apparent in August 2019, when the black-market exchange rate began to split from the official one. The Lebanese pound fell from about £L1,600 to the dollar in late 2019 to £L15,200 by June 2021, and the crisis was deepened by COVID-19 and the Beirut port explosion of 2020. In 2020 Lebanon defaulted on its Eurobond debt, of which about $30 billion was outstanding, the first default in the country’s history, and between 2019 and 2021 its economy shrank by 53.4%.
6. Greece, 145.7%. Greece is the country most associated with a debt crisis. In early 2010 revelations about its finances sent borrowing costs soaring, and the country needed bailout loans in 2010, 2012 and 2015 from the IMF, the Eurogroup and the European Central Bank. In 2011 it negotiated a 50% “haircut” on debt owed to private banks, worth about €100 billion in debt relief. Wages fell by nearly 20% between mid-2010 and 2014, and on 30 June 2015 Greece became the first developed country to miss an IMF repayment on time.
Since the crisis ended in 2018 Greece has regained the confidence of lenders. Its 10-year bond yield fell below Italy’s on 8 November 2019 and below France’s on 29 November 2024, and in June 2026 it repaid a further €6.9 billion of its first bailout early.
5. Bahrain, 147.6%. Bahrain is the Gulf state whose finances look least like its neighbours’. Oil and natural gas still play a dominant role in its economy, but because its reserves are limited Bahrain worked to diversify, building up banking and Islamic finance, which benefited from the regional oil boom. Its borrowing has grown all the same: public debt reached about $44.5 billion, or 130% of GDP, in 2020, and the IMF’s 2025 figure is higher still.
No. 4 and No. 3: Singapore and Sudan, similar numbers for opposite reasons
4. Singapore, 171.3%. Singapore shows why a ratio alone can mislead. Its government does not borrow to fund day-to-day spending: its debt is issued for investment purposes, and the constitution requires a balanced budget over each term of government. The country’s reserves are managed by two sovereign wealth funds, GIC and Temasek Holdings, so the state holds large assets against what it owes. Singapore therefore appears high on a list of gross debt while holding substantial reserves on the other side of the ledger. Gross debt counts what a government owes; it does not subtract what it owns.
3. Sudan, 187.6%. Sudan’s debt is the product of decades of conflict. By 1993 it had become the largest debtor to the World Bank and the IMF, and relations with those institutions soured in the mid-1990s. The Second Sudanese Civil War lasted from 1983 to 2005, and the war in Darfur followed. Since 15 April 2023 the country has been torn apart by a new civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which grew out of a power struggle within the transitional administration, a war that had driven more than 1.2 million people into Egypt alone by November 2024 and has devastated the economy against which the debt is measured.
No. 2: Japan and the Bank of Japan’s bond holdings
2. Japan, 206.5%. Japan has the highest debt of any large developed economy, a legacy of the “Lost Decades”. After its asset price bubble burst in the early 1990s, the country went through the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s struggling with deflation and very low or negative growth, while its public debt climbed far above that of other developed nations. As of 2021 its debt was about 260% of GDP, and the IMF’s 2025 figure of 206.5% is lower but still more than three times the EU’s reference level. Its net debt is 136.5% of GDP.
A large part of the difference from Greece is who owns the debt. About 45% of it was held by the Bank of Japan in 2021, and most of the rest was also held inside Japan. The central bank’s holdings grew after 5 April 2013, when it announced it would purchase 60 to 70 trillion yen of bonds and securities to try to end deflation by doubling the money supply over two years.
No. 1: Venezuela at 308.7% of GDP
1. Venezuela, 308.7%. Venezuela’s ratio is the highest in the world by a wide margin, and it reflects the collapse of the economy as much as new borrowing. The country’s external debt had already risen from $2 billion in 1972 to $33 billion in 1982. The modern crisis came in the 2010s: on 14 November 2017 credit rating agencies declared Venezuela in default, with Standard & Poor’s rating it in “selective default”. Hyperinflation ran from 2014 to 2024, with independent estimates putting inflation at 80,000% at the end of 2018, and the poverty rate approached 90%. When an economy shrinks that far, the debt left behind looks enormous against what remains.
The United States: 11th by ratio, first in dollars
Just below the top 10 are the United States (123.9%), France (116.0%) and Canada (113.5%), with the United Kingdom (102.3%) 21st and China (99.2%) 24th. Germany, at 62.9%, is barely above the EU’s reference level, and Russia’s is 17.2%. In money terms, though, nothing compares with the United States. Its federal debt passed $30 trillion for the first time in February 2022 and reached $38 trillion on 23 October 2025, having added the last trillion in just 71 days. In 2024 federal interest payments on the debt overtook spending on both Medicare and national defence.
A ranking by share of GDP and a ranking in dollars answer different questions, and both are worth reading beside the size of each economy. Our list of countries by GDP gives those totals, and the stories of the two largest debtors among rich economies are told in the guides to the economy of Japan and the economy of the USA.