IMF / WORLD ECONOMIC OUTLOOK
A common source and consistent indicators make comparison more transparent. National accounting practices can still differ.
The accumulated debt liabilities of general government. This is broader than central government and usually includes regional and local authorities and social security funds. Coverage and valuation can differ by country. Gross debt does not subtract government financial assets.
Debt divided by annual GDP expresses the scale of liabilities relative to an economy. A ratio of 100% means debt equals one year of GDP, not that all debt falls due in one year. The ratio alone does not determine default risk: interest rates, maturities, currency and fiscal revenue also matter.
Dollar debt is an approximation: debt-to-GDP ratio × nominal GDP in US dollars / 100. It can differ from official debt converted at year-end exchange rates. Per-person debt divides this estimate by population; it is a statistical ratio, not a personal liability.
The DataMapper API does not provide the actual/estimate cutoff for each country and series. Past years are therefore labelled history/IMF estimates, the current year estimate/projection, and later years projections. Historical values can be revised. There is no simulated real-time debt counter.
The total includes only countries with both a debt ratio and nominal GDP for the selected year. It represents the covered sample, not necessarily all world debt. The combined ratio divides summed derived debt by GDP for those same countries. Missing values are never treated as zero.
The IMF normally publishes WEO twice a year, in April and October. The source release and snapshot retrieval time are shown here. Updates retain the previous version; failures preserve the last validated snapshot. Country names use Unicode CLDR translations.
IMF DataMapper API · GGXWDG_NGDP · NGDPD · LP
Unicode CLDR · Unicode License
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