World debt soars 50 percent in decade, exceeding GDP growth
ISTANBUL
A man walkS past a sign showing the exchange rate of the dollar against the Mexican peso, at a currency exchange office in Mexico City on March 4, 2025.
Global debt surged by about 50 percent over the last decade, outpacing a 46 percent increase in global gross domestic product (GDP).
From the end of 2015 to the end of 2024, global debt rose by 49.2 percent, from $213.3 trillion to $318.4 trillion, an additional $105 trillion, data from the International Institute of Finance (IIF) shows.
Over the last 10 years, global GDP increased by approximately $35 trillion, reaching $110 trillion, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
In other words, global debt now exceeds the world’s GDP by three times.
During the same 10-year period, household debt rose by 50 percent to $60.1 trillion, while debt for non-financial companies grew by 45 percent to $91.3 trillion.
Financial firms saw the smallest increase at 33.4 percent, reaching a total of $71.4 trillion.
Government debt, meanwhile, surged by 67.7 percent, rising from $56.8 trillion at the end of 2015 to $95.3 trillion by the end of 2024.
Mature markets' debt soared by 34.3 percent to $214.3 trillion as of the end of 2024, and emerging markets' debt jumped by 92.7 percent to $103.7 trillion.
As for GDP, advanced economies saw a 41.7 percent increase, while emerging markets and developing economies posted a 53.2 percent rise.
The most impactful developments in the span of the past decade were the measures introduced to ease the severe economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
While global GDP narrowed by around 2.5 percent year-on-year in 2020, according to the IMF, global debt rose by 13 percent over the same period, reaching $291.2 trillion.
Since the World Health Organization declared the pandemic in January 2020, global debt has increased by 23.2 percent, from $258.4 trillion to $318.4 trillion, according to IIF data.
