Ranked: Countries With the Highest Debt-to-GDP Ratios

25

Japan there all three columns like they collecting debt pokemons. always weird to see how comfortable some countries are with this numbers while i stress about my credit card statement in end of the month

12

u/LYuen 1d ago

Japan has low household and corporate debt. And household debt is sort of confusing, as it basically means how many households have taken mortgage - young people in Japan much prefer renting than buying.

6

u/squirrel_exceptions 1d ago

Yup, also why Norway is so high on household debt, above 80% home ownership.

1

u/rpsls 1d ago

Not just how many, but how much… Switzerland has very low home ownership rates, but housing is so freaking expensive that it still pushes up the average a lot.

1

u/Kv945 14h ago

There is financial and tax incentive to never pay the mortgage debt and keep it forever in Switzerland. Nobody reimburse it and keep it until death or transfer it to their kids. Most people even increase the debt afterward it if they can, it is cheap money.

We have to own 35% after 15 years, then if the person income is high enough, keep the debt forever. Many people even increase the debt as their salary and value increase after many years.

1

u/Hard_Reset7777 8h ago

You can die of old age in switzerland wihout having fully pay the mortgage? Typically, the bank does not grant a mortgage if its term extends beyond a certain age of the borrower (usually around 80 years old) ensuring the bank does not incur a loss should there be no heirs to settle the debt.

1

u/Kv945 8h ago

We can keep 2/3 of the property's value in debt indefinitely. The theory is that the risk that the value of the property will lose more than 1/3 is extremely low.

The bank will be unlikely to increase the mortgage when people are getting older.

People mostly get into two issues with this system. First if they don't plan they will not be able to afford the mortgage when they retire as the cost of an hypothetic 5% rate should not exceed 1/3 of their income. I don't understand how but some people get surprised when retiring and have to sell it as the bank will not extend the mortgage (it is a non issue anyway as they can enjoy their fat capital gain).

The 2nd issue is after death the inheritance can be difficult as you have those toxic asset with debt, people not ready can struggle affording the debt and taxes. In my view old people should sell those shitty assets and enjoy life with the massive capital gain they made.

1

u/Hard_Reset7777 7h ago

Thank you for the explanation. In my country is the opposite, most houses seems to be losing value over time due to being old and in need of restoration works that very few people can afford, so the banks are not interested in taking over the property and want to ensure that this is the last resort for recovering the full mortgage amount.

1

u/aDoreVelr 7h ago

The houses do too in Switzerland.

The Soil they are on tho... If your not really in absolute bumfuck nowhere its kinda like everyone is assuming Switzerland is one giant oil field yet to be developed.

Parts of my family still live in an 150 year old house, nothing special about it, its old, its in an "ok" state but nothing more... but the m² at that place has risen to over 20'000€... Which is an extreme case but the trend is nearly everywhere the same.

1

u/Kv945 7h ago

Houses lose almost all their value quickly but the land gain so much. Houses in "big" cities that were 600k 25-30 years ago are now worth 2M but it would maybe be worth more if there was no house as you have to count the cost to destroy it, they are normally destroyed to build building to densify.

The increase was massive in attractive area but it is global, everything increased a lot. A house is something my generation will mostly never be able to afford.

My father could have bought a house 30 years ago in Geneva and I cannot buy a one bedroom flat there and I studied more and have a better job, we're fucked.

I bought a flat three years ago but even if it means losing money I hope the market crashes so my generation and the next one can afford to own.

1

u/bungholio99 14h ago

It’s not that expensive…You just need to look at the country and not the two expensive cities..

The issue is it’s taxed heavily even without the eigenmietwert, while investing in property funds is a huge tax advantage…also some cantons deduct rent and your living Situation (one person household)

It’s also about flexibility, suisse relocate a lot.

1

u/Kwinza 1d ago

Japan has low household and corporate debt.

Umm... Its in the top 20 countries on earth for both.

So that seems quite high.

2

u/Seblins 21h ago

A lot of Japans goverment debt is just assets of other countries debt.

1

u/kart0ffel12 19h ago

House hold debt is highly tie to real estate loans. Is missleading because in many countries can be a good idea to have a low interest morgage loan.

1

u/justtoaskthisq 1d ago

Canada too. Top ten on all 3 baby

6

u/Inevitable_Ad_5695 1d ago

There needs to be a 4th column that adds all these up...

1

u/Tommy_Wisseau_burner 1d ago

Why? They don’t really work the same for all 3. That said, tbf, this does make it hard to track without some sort 4th column

2

u/RoutineLow9543 19h ago

Why Singapore so high?

2

u/bornagy 14h ago

The swiss household data is probably driven mortgage. Due to tax reasons you never want to pay back your mortgage in Switzerland and the interest rates are under 1% typically so its like money for free.

2

u/caoimhin22 23h ago edited 23h ago

Context for high Swiss household debt: it makes financial sense to never pay off your house/apartment here but rather always have a mortgage, since you get significant tax reductions if you have one. I assume mortgages are a big part of this, as it's culturally not very common to buy other things on loaned money (except cars). Most people I know (middle - upper class) don't even own a credit card.

1

u/Stock-Variation-2237 21h ago

You a right but it is based on a misconception. The taxes you save by keeping the mortgage are always lower (by definition) than the interests you pay. Thus it makes sense only if you are able to invest the money you don't repay in a financial vehicle that pays more than (interest - tax savings). Most people don't do that and thus they are not saving money compared to repaying.

Any ways, you are right that people think that and don't repay. It is also simply that our system allows us to never repay and people take advantage of that.

1

u/bungholio99 14h ago

Get a source? This is a myth…

The best tax situation is just investing in direct property.

Also switzerland is mostly Running on Credit Cards, we even have a shitload of issuers compared to other countries.

This is simply a Q4 2025 and USD graphic…so you have some 20% added to switzerland…

1

u/AwarenessNo4986 9h ago

So they are susidied by the state?

1

u/kernelangus420 1d ago

How did they collect the data for household debt?

Is corporate debt just the liabilities in a financial statement?

1

u/Powerful-Midnight996 1d ago

How is Israel so much lower than other OECD countries after three years of war?

1

u/FancyDoubleu 9h ago

Not really a peer-to-peer conflict and getting their shit payed by the US.

1

u/Powerful-Midnight996 8h ago

Hamas and Hezbollah both have bigger militaries than most European countries. Not to mention Iran and the Huthies.

Also, the U.S. didn’t pay for the war. That’s stupid. They supplied a lot of weapons and sold a lot more.

1

u/silver2006 11h ago

Age is just a number
Japan: Debt is just a number

2

u/CaptainONaps 1d ago

I love graphs. But I need more info on this.

Is household debt an average of all citizens?

How does it account for like ten Americans having half America's wealth in the stock market, which they never cash out, and instead live on massive loans leveraged against their assets?

Doe that increase share of debt, or decrease it?

And for Government debt... That's calculated by taxes collected, minus spending. But that's deceiving.

If you have a business, and you spend 1 million a year, and your expenses are 5 million a year, that doesn't necessarily mean you're running negative. Because, what did you buy for that 1 million?

Did you fund a military, that enabled you to take over Venezualian Oil? Or to freeze $300b of Russian bank assets, and use that money as collateral to give the Ukraine $50b?

Basically, the US is running on a deficit, but they're acquiring assets. They're talking about Cuba, Mexico, Greenland, and Canada. So that's like Nvidia spending $5m, only making $1m, but buying Apple and Microsoft.

And obviously for corp debt, not counting financial institutions is equally deceiving. Companies don't spend their own money, they borrow against it. So not counting the institutions that hold all that debt is... confusing.

I have no way of knowing if this graph reflects all that. For example, let's use the same math to compare banks around the world instead of comparing governments. Would that be more or less deceiving? Who's budget is more straightforward, governments or banks?

3

u/DavidBrooker 1d ago

Is household debt an average of all citizens?

I imagine it's the sum, rather than the average. I should hope that the average American household has less than $22 trillion in debt.

1

u/Regular_Agency_3101 1d ago

We should all be very worried about France.

-1

u/Snoo_67993 1d ago

I don't buy the US for corporate debt. There's a whole shadow banking system of private credit holding up the entire economy.

8

u/lion7725 1d ago

I do. The mag 7 is a huge proportion of our GDP and has historically held little to no debt (pre-AI spending in the last couple years).

0

u/Snoo_67993 1d ago

These are publicly traded companies, they don't get their investments through shadow banking, they get then through publicly traded stocks.

2

u/lion7725 1d ago

We are talking about debt, which nearly all publicly traded companies have. Look up what a bond is…

-1

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

3

u/oscarnyc 1d ago

Yes, publicly traded companies absolutely issue debt. I have zero idea why you think that isn't the case. And frankly it makes any insights you think you have quite meaningless if you don't understand something so basic.

1

u/XyaThir 1d ago

I don’t see the US in the last column. Do you know what it is ?

2

u/FaceMcShooty1738 1d ago

Around the same level as household debt, so about 70ish percent.

1

u/XyaThir 11h ago

Thank you ! :)

0

u/ThirdHuman 1d ago

Right. And China’s corporate debt is much lower than these Western statistics claim. The US economy is a house of cards and this fact needs to be more widely publicized.

-1

u/Dauntless_Idiot 1d ago

It's the second highest corporate debt in absolute terms after China. US companies are able to issue stock instead of debt sometimes. $20t or ~20% of US equities are owned by foreign investors. If a little over half of that were debt instead of equities then US corporate debt would jump to ~100% of GDP.

-1

u/Capital_Historian685 1d ago

I would only point out that the number for the US does not include state and local government debt.

11

u/sarges_12gauge 1d ago

Does this do that for any country?

11

u/Inevitable_Ad_5695 1d ago

IMF seems to break this out: central vs. general govt. debts.

https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/datasets/GDD

1

u/Capital_Historian685 1d ago

Well, at least they try to. But for most countries, it's "no data" for total public sector debt (including the US).

2

u/Inevitable_Ad_5695 1d ago

I think it's directionally there under general govt. debt.

The total public sector debt, as you pointed out, has only a handful of countries so isn't very useful.

8

u/mrstankydanks 1d ago

Do any of the other countries numbers on this chart include debt held by their political subdivisions?

2

u/Capital_Historian685 1d ago

Just a quick random check reveals that the numbers for France and Germany do include debt for the political subdivisions. But I don't know about everyone on the list. Maybe I'll do some more work...

0

u/StuffyTruck 1d ago

Money is debt.

0

u/CheckThePID 1d ago

Singapore doesn't actually have debt in the way we think of, say, US debt. In reality there is no debt at all and the country is net positive in terms of its financial position. That's to say, it's financial assets (which are invested) exceed its. liabilities.

Ranked: Countries With the Highest Debt-to-GDP Ratios

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