Pakistan owed the world 135.11 billion dollars at the end of 2025, nearly double what it owed ten years earlier. The figure comes from the World Bank’s International Debt Report 2026, published on 6 November. In 2015 the stock stood at 68.67 billion dollars, so the rise since then is 66.44 billion dollars, or about 97 percent. The bill grew by 5.19 billion dollars in 2025 alone, a rise of 4 percent on the year before. Spread across a population of 255.2 million, the debt works out at about 529 dollars for every person in the country.
Ten years, nearly double
Pakistan added about 6.6 billion dollars a year on average between 2015 and 2025. The 2025 rise alone, 5.19 billion dollars, equals about 7.6 percent of the whole 2015 stock. The World Bank counts the total at 34 percent of gross national income, a ratio that fell as income grew faster than the debt. But the stock is still more than three times annual exports, at 324 percent of exports, so exports would need to more than triple to match what is owed.
Most of the debt sits with the government. Public and publicly guaranteed debt, including IMF credit, accounts for 107.08 billion dollars, about 79 percent of the total. Private non-guaranteed debt is 17.58 billion dollars, and short-term debt 10.45 billion dollars. The short-term slice needs rolling over soonest; the $3bn Saudi rollover was confirmed only this week. That single deposit equals almost 29 percent of the whole short-term stock.
Who owns the debt
Multilateral institutions hold the largest share, 56.83 billion dollars, about 53 percent of the public and publicly guaranteed debt. Bilateral creditors hold 42.44 billion dollars, and private creditors 7.81 billion dollars. Of that, the World Bank’s International Development Association holds 19.21 billion dollars, the Asian Development Bank 16.83 billion dollars, and other multilateral lenders 20.79 billion dollars.
China is the largest single creditor, with 22.42 billion dollars outstanding. That is about 53 percent of all bilateral debt and about 17 percent of the total external debt. Together, the three biggest single creditors, China, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, hold 58.46 billion dollars, about 43 percent of the whole stock.
Two prices for the same money
Not all borrowing costs the same. New official commitments in 2025 carried an average rate of 3.6 percent, a 16-year maturity and a four-year grace period. New private commitments carried 8.6 percent, a three-year maturity and a one-year grace period. Private money therefore costs about 2.4 times as much and must be repaid more than five times as fast.
The expensive slice is still small. Private creditors hold only 7.81 billion dollars of the public and publicly guaranteed debt, about 7 percent of it. But the direction matters. Across low and middle income countries, new private rates reached 8.2 percent, the highest since the late 1980s, and total debt service rose for a fifth year in a row to 1.4 trillion dollars.
What the bill looks like this year
The stock is one thing, the yearly bill is another. Pakistan was told by a Senate panel that gross external financing repayments this year come to 21.5 billion dollars, including 17 billion dollars of principal and 4 billion dollars of interest. That is about 16 percent of the whole stock, due in a single year. SBP reserves at $21.56 billion for the week ended 30 October are almost exactly equal to one year of repayments, which shows how thin the cushion is.
The export test is harsher still. Debt service stands at 33 percent of exports, about one dollar in every three earned abroad. China extended the maturity of 2 billion dollars in loans, and the IMF provided 2.3 billion dollars in new funding. The IMF money is less than half of the 5.19 billion dollar rise in the same year. Meanwhile the ECC approved Rs359bn in extra grants at home, a reminder that fiscal space is already stretched.
What to watch next
Three dates will show whether the burden eases or grows. The first is the IMF board meeting expected in December, which decides the next step of the programme. The second is the next round of rollovers, because the 10.45 billion dollars of short-term debt must be renewed or repaid. The third is exports themselves, since a 33 percent debt service ratio only falls if exports grow faster than the bill. Globally, low and middle income countries owe a record 9.4 trillion dollars, up 5.5 percent in 2025. Readers can follow more business and economy news from Pakistan as the figures develop.
