Total Public Debt

Total Public Debt measures the outstanding stock of public debt contracted by the government with both resident and non-resident creditors. It includes external and domestic debt instruments such as loans, bonds and other financial obligations, reflecting the overall indebtedness of the government and its financing needs. Where available it is reported across government levels — central government, general government and the non-financial public sector. Published in the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Latin Macro Watch (LMW), this indicator supports researchers, policymakers and analysts assessing fiscal sustainability across Latin America and the Caribbean.

Coverage

Total Public Debt is available for 21 countries across Latin America and the Caribbean at annual, monthly and quarterly frequency, spanning 1990 to 2026. Values can be expressed as a share of GDP, year-to-date (YTD), on a fiscal-year (Q4–Q3 aggregation) basis and in millions of USD, in end-of-period and period-average variants. Transformations include MA3, MA6 and MA12 moving averages and MoM %, QoQ % and YoY % growth rates.

Sources

The series is compiled from national finance ministries, central banks and statistical agencies, including Tesouro Nacional do Brasil, Ministerio de Hacienda de Mexico, Ministerio de Economía de Argentina, Ministerio de Hacienda y Crédito Público de Colombia and the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service of Jamaica. Country-specific notes describe definitional breaks and perimeter differences that affect international comparability.

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Format	CSV
Language	en
Country	Argentina Bahamas Trinidad & Tobago Belize Costa Rica Dominican Republic Ecuador Bolivia Brazil Chile Colombia El Salvador Jamaica Mexico Nicaragua Guatemala Guyana Haiti Honduras Panama Uruguay Venezuela Barbados Paraguay Peru Suriname
Data notes	What does Total Public Debt measure? It measures the outstanding stock of public debt contracted by the government with resident and non-resident creditors, including external and domestic instruments such as loans, bonds and other financial obligations. Which government levels are reported? Where available, the indicator is reported for central government, general government and the non-financial public sector; perimeters differ by country and affect international comparability. How many countries and which time period are covered? The indicator covers 21 countries across Latin America and the Caribbean from 1990 to 2026, at annual, monthly and quarterly frequency. What units and transformations are available? Values are available as a share of GDP, YTD, on a fiscal-year (Q4–Q3) basis and in millions of USD, with MA3/MA6/MA12 moving averages and MoM %, QoQ % and YoY % growth rates. Are there breaks in the series to be aware of? Yes. Country notes flag definitional breaks — for example, a level discontinuity in December 2006 from combining source vintages, and an interpolation filling missing 2002–2003 central-government observations — so comparisons across these points should be interpreted with caution. How do I cite this indicator? Cite it as: Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Latin Macro Watch — "Total Public Debt". data.iadb.org/dataset/latin-macro-watch-dataset.