Since 2014, the Bank of Canada (BoC) has maintained a comprehensive database of sovereign defaults to systematically measure and aggregate the nominal value of the different types of sovereign government debt in default. The database draws on published datasets compiled by various public and private sector sources. It combines elements of these sources with new information to develop comprehensive estimates of stocks of government obligations in default. These include bonds and other marketable securities, as well as bank loans and official loans, valued in US dollars, for the years 1960 to 2024, on both a country-by-country and a global basis.
We consider debt to be in distress—and effectively in default—when an interruption in scheduled debt service occurs, a sovereign seeks to renegotiate the existing contract terms of any of its obligations or a combination of both. Such restructurings can include writing down the principal, reducing the interest rate or extending maturities. Typically, they also involve creditors suffering a loss in net present value. Once restructured, the debt is reclassified as performing and no longer considered to be in default.
Official creditors include the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, other multilateral development banks, Paris Club creditors, non-Paris Club G20 creditors (notably China, India and South Africa) and other government development agencies. Private creditors are external bondholders, banks and suppliers.
The database is posted on the BoC’s website and is updated annually in partnership with the Bank of England (BoE). Regular updates of the BoC–BoE database are useful to researchers analyzing the economic and financial effects of individual sovereign defaults and, importantly, the impacts on global financial stability from episodes involving multiple sovereign defaults.
In this paper, we:
The 2025 edition of the database, as well as related research, contain several enhancements, including:
All data are downloadable in CSV, JSON and XML formats.
Our preliminary estimate of the total value of sovereign debt in default is US$425 billion in 2024, or 0.4% of global public debt. This is a decrease of US$46 billion, or 10%, from the revised total of US$471 billion in 2023. At the same time, we estimate that the number of sovereigns in default declined from 92 to 86, marking the third consecutive decline since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Debt in default fell 37% to US$55 billion for sovereigns that are part of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative of the IMF and World Bank, and 4% to US$327 billion for emerging- and frontier-market sovereigns. That said, tighter financing conditions continue to impact many heavily indebted low-income sovereigns. By contrast, debt in default among advanced economies remained at zero last year.
Loans in default to official creditors increased by US$6.9 billion, or 4%, between 2023 and 2024 to US$177 billion, but each major subgroup of creditors fared differently. For only the third time since 1974, there were no defaults to the IMF. By contrast, defaults to the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA)—which form part of the World Bank Group—and the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) rose collectively by US$0.3 billion, or 6%, to US$4.8 billion. Among bilateral creditors, identified defaults to China rose by US$17.8 billion, or 49%, to US$54 billion, while defaults to the Paris Club fell by nearly US$10 billion. Defaults to other official creditors that we have not identified separately fell by US$1.4 billion, or 2%, to US$70 billion.
Debt in default to private creditors dropped by US$32 billion, or 12%, to US$243 billion in 2024. As with official creditors, large variations were observed across categories. Defaults on foreign currency bonds, which made up the largest share of defaults (Chart 1), fell by US$32 billion, or 14%. Five sovereigns—El Salvador, Ghana, Mozambique, Niger and Suriname—restructured their debt and were no longer considered to be in default. Of the 11 that remained in default on their foreign currency bonds, the most notable defaults by magnitude were Venezuela (US$53 billion), Russia (US$49 billion), Lebanon (US$43 billion), Ukraine (US$27 billion), Sri Lanka (US$15 billion) and Zambia (US$3 billion). Defaults on bank loans fell by US$2 billion, or 11%, while defaults to other private external creditors (mainly suppliers) rose by US$1.7 billion, or 7%, to US$28 billion.2
Defaults on local currency debt dropped to US$5.4 billion in 2024 from US$27 billion in 2023, a steep decline of 80%. This is the lowest amount in the last three years and is made up of only two sovereign defaults: Ethiopia’s $5.3 billion local currency default and a small amount of Argentina’s peso debt that has not been restructured.
As in previous years, the distribution of defaults in 2024 is highly concentrated in terms of value: 13 sovereigns accounted for 90% of the US-dollar value of debt in default globally. Just 4 sovereigns—Venezuela, Russia, Iraq and Lebanon—accounted for 55% of the overall amount in default in 2024.
The IMF estimates that the global stock of general government debt, measured in US dollars, reached a record US$104 trillion in 2024, or 95% of global GDP. The IMF also projects that the global public debt burden will continue to grow over the medium term, partly due to elevated nominal interest rates and debt service payments. The World Bank notes that interest payments for the 78 countries eligible to borrow from the IDA now average nearly 6% of their total export earnings—the highest level since 1999.3 Debt service payments for some of these countries run as high as 38% of export earnings.
Bank of Canada staff analytical notes are short articles that focus on topical issues relevant to the current economic and financial context, produced independently from the Bank’s Governing Council. This work may support or challenge prevailing policy orthodoxy. Therefore, the views expressed in this note are solely those of the authors and may differ from official Bank of Canada views. No responsibility for them should be attributed to the Bank.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.34989/san-2025-24
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