An analysis by the National Assembly Budget Office shows South Korea's total debt-to-GDP ratio rose 22.5 percentage points from end-2019 to end-2025 to 244.7%, the biggest increase among the 28 major economies in BIS data. The level itself ranks 14th of 28 and is below the advanced-economy average.
According to the Kyunghyang Shinmun on the 2nd, the Budget Office's ‘analysis of fiscal aggregates in the 2027 budget proposal’ says Korea's total debt ratio, on Bank for International Settlements data, climbed 22.5 percentage points between end-2019 and end-2025. Only seven countries saw their ratios rise over the period, while 21, including Britain (-43.1 points), Japan (-19.5) and the United States (-5.2), saw them fall.
광고 문의 · 300×250The absolute level is below the advanced-economy average of 258.1% and close to the G20 average of 247%. The point of the analysis is therefore not that Korea is the most indebted but that its debt has grown the fastest.
Two-thirds of the increase came from firms
Companies were the main driver. The non-financial corporate debt ratio rose 14.9 points, accounting for 66.2% of the total increase, while general government debt rose 8.6 points. Household and non-profit debt fell 1.0 point.
The Kyunghyang Shinmun said expanded real-estate lending, pandemic-era financial support for the self-employed, and firms' working-capital and investment needs overlapped. A 2024 Bank of Korea report found that about 29%, or 301 trillion won, of the 1,036 trillion won rise in corporate debt in 2018-2023 was real-estate-related lending.
A private-sector skew and fiscal risk
The private-sector (household and corporate) share of debt in 2025 was 81.3%, 20.2 points above the advanced-economy average of 61.1%. It has eased from its 2022 peak of 83.4%, but the structure has barely changed. General government's share is 18.7%, less than half the advanced-economy 38.9%.
The Budget Office warned that if private debt turns bad and weakens financial institutions, public funds may be needed. From the 1997 foreign-exchange crisis to June 2025, 168.7 trillion won in public funds went to resolving financial-sector failures, of which 49 trillion won became national debt. It stressed that fiscal soundness should be assessed with a close look at managing total debt, including private debt, not just national debt.