Low income: Short-term debt (% of total reserves)

Key figures

What the numbers say

In 2024, Low income's short-term debt (% of total reserves) fell 0.83 percentage points on 2023 (from 16.39% to 15.56%).

Across the 28 yearly changes before that (1992 to 2023), the average change was −12.71 percentage points and a typical year strayed about 46.4 percentage points from that (the standard deviation). This year's change was 0.3 standard deviations above that average, so it was an ordinary year: it sits within the range of normal year-to-year movement.

On record, the biggest yearly rise was 132.18 percentage points in 1992 and the biggest yearly fall was 123.78 percentage points in 1995. The numbers show how large and when, not why; for the cause, look at what happened in that country in those years.

From 2015 to 2024 the straight-line trend is downward, about 2.4 percentage points a year. A straight line explains 56% of the movement over 10 observed years.

Worked out from the yearly values above. How the checks work: standard deviation, z-scores and straight-line trends.

What this measures

Short-term debt includes all debt having an original maturity of one year or less and interest in arrears on long-term debt. Total reserves includes gold.

Limitations: The DRS encourages debtor countries to voluntarily provide information on their short-term external obligations. By its nature, short-term external debt is difficult to monitor: loan-by-loan registration is normally impractical, and monitoring systems typically rely on information requested periodically by the central bank from the banking sector. The World Bank regards the debtor country as the authoritative source of information on its short-term debt. Where such information is not available from the debtor country, data are derived from BIS data on international bank lending based on time remaining to original maturity.

Regional and income-group figures are computed by the World Bank as a weighted average.

All 32 values

Short-term debt (% of total reserves) in nearby economies

• Afghanistan — 4.46% (2020)
• Algeria — 2.12% (2024)
• Djibouti — 148.57% (2024)
• Egypt, Arab Rep. — 69% (2024)
• Iraq — 0.72% (2024)
• Jordan — 81.58% (2024)
• Lebanon — 57.19% (2024)
• Morocco — 20.21% (2024)
• Pakistan — 52.2% (2024)
• Tunisia — 170.49% (2024)
• Yemen, Rep.

More economic policy & debt data for Low income

• GDP (current US$) — US$642.67 billion (2025)
• GDP per capita (current US$) — US$837.36 (2025)
• GNI (current US$) — US$627.91 billion (2025)
• Net bilateral aid flows from DAC donors, Austria (current US$) — US$57.58 million (2023)
• Net bilateral aid flows from DAC donors, Belgium (current US$) — US$350.05 million (2023)
• Net bilateral aid flows from DAC donors, Canada (current US$) — US$677.23 million (2023)
• Net bilateral aid flows from DAC donors, European Union institutions (current US$) — US$3.08 billion (2023)
• Net bilateral aid flows from DAC donors, Switzerland (current US$) — US$483.76 million (2023)
• Net bilateral aid flows from DAC donors, Germany (current US$)

Reading data like this

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Questions people ask

What is Low income's short-term debt (% of total reserves)?

15.56% in 2024, according to the World Bank (World Development Indicators).

How has it changed since 1970?

It is down 7.56 percentage points from 23.12% in 1970. The highest value was 586.78% in 1993 and the lowest 15.56% in 2024.

Is the latest change in short-term debt (% of total reserves) unusual for Low income?

In 2024, Low income's short-term debt (% of total reserves) fell 0.83 percentage points on 2023 (from 16.39% to 15.56%). Across the 28 yearly changes before that (1992 to 2023), the average change was −12.71 percentage points and a typical year strayed about 46.4 percentage points from that (the standard deviation). This year's change was 0.3 standard deviations above that average, so it was an ordinary year: it sits within the range of normal year-to-year movement.

Source

World Bank, World Development Indicators, indicator DT.DOD.DSTC.IR.ZS, licensed CC BY 4.0. Original source: World Development Indicators, World Bank (WB); International Monetary Fund (IMF), type: Balance of Payments Statistics Yearbook and data files; World Bank (WB), type: GDP estimates; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), type: GDP estimates Figures are fetched from the World Bank API and refreshed monthly; see the series on data.worldbank.org. The full definition and method are in the World Bank's metadata glossary. Comparisons use the same World Bank release.

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