Debt to GDP explorer: compare India with any country

What problem does the debt-to-GDP explorer solve?

"India's debt is too high" and "India's debt is fine" are both said often, usually without a comparison. The debt-to-GDP explorer supplies one: government debt as a share of GDP for India and any other IMF member, year by year, with the IMF's own projections. It sits under the Insights section. This post uses the IMF's World Economic Outlook of October 2026, last updated by the IMF on 8 October 2026.

Step 1: read the default chart

The page opens with ten lines: India, the United States, China, Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany, Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa and the World aggregate. India's line is drawn thicker than the rest. Solid lines are IMF actuals; from 2026 the lines turn dashed, because those years are the IMF's estimates and projections, and a shaded band marks that stretch. Hover any year for every country's value, sorted from highest to lowest.

The heading line gives the one number most people come for: India's general government debt was 84.3% of GDP in 2025.

Step 2: choose the countries

Above the chart, each country is a chip with a × to remove it. The "+ Add country…" menu lists about 195 countries and four aggregates, marked "(aggregate)": World, Advanced economies, Emerging market and developing economies, and Euro area. Up to ten can be on the chart at once; at ten, the menu reads "Up to 10 at once" until you remove one.

The choice is kept in the address bar as country codes, so a comparison can be bookmarked or shared. India against China, for example, is just ?c=IND,CHN on the end of the page address.

Step 3: switch the range

A two-button toggle on the right switches between "IMF outlook", the default, and "Since 1800s". The second draws the IMF's Public Finances in Modern History series instead: countries only, no projections, and definitions that differ slightly from the outlook series. India's line in that view starts in 1861 at 14.1% of GDP; the United Kingdom's starts in 1800 at 176.3%.

Step 4: read "Where each stands"

Below the chart, a table lists every selected country with three columns: Latest actual, Ten years earlier and IMF projection. For the default ten:

The page lists them in the order you picked; this table is sorted by the latest figure.

Worked example: India and China over a decade

Remove everything except India and China, and the two lines tell different stories.

• The level. In 2025 India's ratio, 84.3%, was below China's 98.6%.
• The change. Over ten years India's ratio rose 14.6 points, from 69.7%. China's rose 57.7 points, from 40.9%, the steepest climb among the default ten.
• The shape. India's line jumps from 76.5% in 2019 to 90.4% in 2020, then settles between 84% and 86% from 2021 to 2025. China's has kept climbing: 70.6% in 2020, 98.6% in 2025.
• The projection. The IMF's dashed line takes India down to 75.1% by 2031 and China up to 122.1%.

The table answers "who is higher?"; the chart answers "which way is it going?" Both matter, and the second is the one a single headline number leaves out. We looked at the long version of India's line in India's government debt since 1861, and at the G20 in G20 government debt to GDP compared.

What the explorer does not tell you

• Central government only. The figure is general government gross debt: central, state and local together. The page notes that India's central government alone is roughly two-thirds of it.
• Whether the debt is a problem. Who holds the debt, what currency it is in and what interest it carries matter as much as its size, and the ratio shows none of them.
• What it means for your bonds. Government borrowing feeds into the yields that gilt and other debt funds earn, but not in a way a ratio predicts. Global macro and Indian funds covers how these numbers reach a portfolio, and India's debt to GDP vs the world puts this year's figure in context.

The debt-to-GDP explorer reproduces the IMF's published figures; the projections are the IMF's, not ours. Nothing here is investment advice.