- Ghana’s debt stock holds above GH¢640bn as fiscal repair shifts from crisis response to balance-sheet discipline
Ghana’s public debt story is no longer defined by emergency. It is defined by management. The latest Bank of Ghana data show that the country ended 2025 with a total public debt stock of GH¢641bn, equivalent to US$61.3bn and 45.3 per cent of GDP. That is still a heavy sovereign balance sheet by any normal standard. But compared with the more distressed profile seen at the end of 2024, it also suggests that Ghana has moved meaningfully away from the worst phase of its debt crisis and into a more delicate phase of fiscal repair.
At the end of 2024, total public debt stood at GH¢726.7bn, or 61.8 per cent of GDP. By January 2025, it had climbed further in nominal terms to GH¢752.1bn, before rising to GH¢768.1bn in February 2025. The subsequent decline in the debt-to-GDP ratio through much of 2025 therefore marks one of the most important macro shifts in Ghana’s recent economic story. By June 2025, the ratio had fallen to 43.3 per cent, before settling at 45.3 per cent by December 2025.
That improvement matters. It suggests the sovereign debt overhang, while far from resolved, is no longer expanding at the pace that once threatened to overwhelm macroeconomic management. But the underlying structure of the debt stock shows why policymakers cannot yet afford complacency.
The external component of the debt stood at US$29.4bn at the end of December 2025, equivalent to GH¢307.2bn or 21.7 per cent of GDP. Domestic debt, by contrast, stood at GH¢333.8bn, representing 23.6 per cent of GDP. In cedi terms, that means domestic obligations now account for a slightly larger portion of the public debt burden than external liabilities.
That is a notable shift in emphasis. During the height of Ghana’s debt distress, much of the public debate focused on Eurobonds, bilateral creditors and the country’s external financing gap. But the current numbers show that the domestic debt stock remains just as central to the sovereign balance-sheet story. Indeed, by end-2025, domestic debt was larger than external debt in cedi terms, highlighting the extent to which fiscal pressure has become increasingly internalised within the local financial system.
The reason is first, domestic debt has direct implications for liquidity conditions, banking system exposure and the government’s financing flexibility at home. Second, it means that even after the headline drama of restructuring has faded, the state still faces the more technical but equally important task of managing rollover risk, interest costs and the political economy of borrowing from its own market.
The fiscal data show that this pressure has not disappeared. Government recorded an overall cash deficit of 3.1 per cent of GDP in 2025, while net domestic financing reached 2.8 per cent of GDP by year-end. At the same time, the primary cash balance remained in surplus at 0.5 per cent of GDP, suggesting the state is generating some underlying fiscal improvement before interest costs are taken into account.
That distinction is important. Ghana’s fiscal position is no longer one of uncontrolled primary expansion. The state is, at least on the data, trying to hold the line operationally. The problem is that the debt stock remains large enough for financing costs and borrowing needs to continue shaping the broader fiscal picture.
Markets, for now, appear willing to give the government some room. The BoG data show a dramatic compression in domestic rates over the past year. The 91-day Treasury bill rate fell to 8.96 per cent in February 2026, down from 26.93 per cent a year earlier. The 182-day bill declined to 10.75 per cent from 27.69 per cent, while the 364-day bill dropped to 11.53 per cent from 28.90 per cent. On the secondary market, yields on post-DDEP bonds have also fallen sharply, with the 4-year bond at 9.10 per cent and the 10-year bond at 12.62 per cent in February 2026.
For the sovereign, this is not a trivial development. Lower domestic yields reduce the immediate cost of refinancing and ease some of the pressure on fiscal arithmetic. But they do not eliminate the stock problem. A government with GH¢333.8bn in domestic debt and GH¢641bn in total public debt still operates under a very different set of constraints from one with a cleaner balance sheet.
The broader macro backdrop is helping. Inflation slowed to 3.3 per cent in February 2026, reserves climbed to US$14.47bn, equal to 5.8 months of import cover, and the trade balance remained in surplus at US$3.69bn by February 2026, supported heavily by gold exports. Those conditions improve the sovereign’s room for manoeuvre and help explain why debt dynamics now look more stable than they did a year ago.
Yet stability is not the same as resolution. What the numbers show is that Ghana’s debt burden has become more manageable, not small. The debt ratio has come down sharply from the end-2024 peak, but the nominal stock remains high, domestic financing remains active, and the state is still relying on careful fiscal control and more favourable market conditions to keep the story moving in the right direction.
The next chapter, then, is unlikely to be about whether Ghana can survive debt distress. That chapter has largely been written. The more relevant question now is whether the government can convert temporary balance-sheet relief into durable sovereign credibility by borrowing less expensively, financing more prudently and preventing the domestic debt stock from becoming the next centre of fiscal risk.
