The United States is set to remain the world’s largest holder of government debt in dollar terms this year, according to International Monetary Fund projections, with its borrowing outpacing the combined totals of China, Japan, Britain and France.
The IMF estimates put U.S. government debt at $40.7 trillion for 2026, a figure driven in part by sustained global appetite for dollar-denominated assets and the country’s position as issuer of the world’s main reserve currency. Analysts say that status allows Washington to carry a debt load far beyond what most economies could sustain without triggering a crisis of investor confidence.
When measured against the size of national economies rather than in raw dollars, however, the rankings shift sharply. Japan carries the heaviest debt burden relative to output, with government debt projected at roughly 204% of GDP, a level economists attribute to decades of stimulus spending following its 1990s economic stagnation. Singapore, Sudan and Bahrain follow among the most heavily indebted by that measure.
The U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio, by contrast, stands at around 126%, placing it behind Japan, Singapore, Italy and Greece despite its outsized dollar total. China, India, Canada and Brazil round out the top tier of countries by absolute debt, with India’s government debt estimated at $3.46 trillion, the eighth-highest in the world.
Economists caution that debt-to-GDP comparisons alone do not fully capture a government’s fiscal risk. Factors such as credit ratings, political stability, access to international financing and the depth of domestic investor bases all shape how markets price a country’s borrowing costs, meaning nations with lower ratios can sometimes face steeper borrowing challenges than those with higher ones.
