Data

BIS International Debt Securities Outstanding: $34.3T — source data. Bank for International Settlements (BIS).
Period	Total (USD bn)	YoY Change	US (USD bn)	UK (USD bn)	Japan (USD bn)	China (USD bn)	Germany (USD bn)
Q1 2026	34,348.6	+11.2%	6,828.3	3,501.7	866	1,004.1	2,151.9
Q4 2025	33,955.6	+14.5%	6,636.2	3,482.1	872.1	1,004.6	2,199.4
Q3 2025	33,389	+9.5%	6,444.5	3,444.9	857.4	998.3	2,185.2
Q2 2025	32,721.6	+11.9%	6,223.1	3,409.4	819.1	1,004.9	2,144.7
Q1 2025	30,879	+6.6%	5,947.9	3,200.7	786	1,017.7	1,966.8
Q4 2024	29,665.9	+3.1%	5,643.2	3,066.7	772.5	1,029.4	1,869.3
2023	28,784.1	+5.2%	2,287.6	968.2	490.8	457.7	354.9
2022	27,356.8	-1.7%	2,200.3	959.4	479	528.9	362.8
2021	27,820.1	+3.3%	2,091.7	959.2	490.5	592.5	411.3
2020	26,935	+8.6%	1,754.6	898.9	453.9	574.9	423
2019	24,791.3	+4.3%	1,664.7	882.9	434.6	515.2	468.5
2018	23,759.4	+1.4%	1,562.2	846.2	388.9	425.8	476.7
2017	23,437.1	+8.6%	1,353.9	804.5	354.3	356.4	518.6
2016	20,968.8	-1.0%	1,328.8	784.3	285.1	264.3	505.8
2015	20,851.8	-6.4%	1,312.4	739.9	247.5	228.6	465.9

About this Dataset

Global international debt securities outstanding reached $34.3 trillion (USD equivalent) in Q1 2026 — up 11.2% from $30.9 trillion a year earlier. Net new supply of $393 billion in the quarter, down from $567 billion in Q4 2025, shows primary issuance from sovereign, supranational, and high-grade corporate borrowers cooling from the sharper pace seen earlier in 2025. The market has grown roughly sevenfold since Q1 2000, when total IDS outstanding stood at $4.8 trillion, reflecting the progressive internationalisation of corporate and sovereign borrowing and the expansion of the global institutional investor base.

US-nationality issuers accounted for $6.8 trillion of the $34.3 trillion in global debt securities outstanding as of Q1 2026 — just under 20% of the total and the largest single-country share. Together with the UK ($3.5 trillion) and Germany ($2.2 trillion), the top three issuer nationalities account for $12.5 trillion, or 36.3% of global outstanding, meaning credit conditions in a small number of large economies dominate the aggregate supply picture in cross-border debt markets.

The nationality-basis breakdown shows broadening supply across issuer countries. US-nationality issuers lead with $6.8 trillion outstanding as of Q1 2026 — up 14.8% year-on-year from Q1 2025 — reflecting the deep integration of US financial institutions and multinationals with offshore capital markets. United Kingdom-nationality issuers held $3.5 trillion, Germany $2.2 trillion, and Japan $866 billion. China's outstanding balance has held in a narrow $998–1,029 billion range from Q4 2024 through Q1 2026, as Chinese real estate developers continue to curtail offshore bond issuance amid the property sector deleveraging cycle that took hold from 2021 onward. Q4 2024 registered a transient dip to $29.7 trillion (USD equivalent) — the only down-quarter in the quarterly data since Q4 2023 — partly reflecting year-end EUR/USD exchange rate movements that mechanically depressed the USD equivalent of non-dollar securities.

Dataset: BIS WS_DEBT_SEC2_PUB, sourced from national central banks, regulatory agencies, and reporting dealers; classified by BIS using the international/domestic distinction defined in the Handbook on Securities Statistics
Methodology: A security is classified as international if at least one of registration location, governing law, or listing location differs from the immediate issuer's country of residence
Issuer basis: Nationality principle — securities attributed to the ultimate parent's country, not the SPV or issuing entity's country of registration
Currency reporting: Values expressed in USD equivalents using end-of-period exchange rates; USD-denominated series uses issue currency = USD
Temporal coverage: Q1 2000 to Q1 2026 (this page); BIS series extends back to 1993 for some sub-series
Geography: 50+ issuer nationalities; this page shows top-five country breakdown plus global total

The market's behaviour through the 2022–2026 rate cycle demonstrates the sensitivity of IDS to dollar policy. Total IDS outstanding (in USD equivalent) declined from $27.8 trillion in 2021 to $27.4 trillion in 2022 — a modest contraction driven primarily by USD appreciation, which mechanically reduced the USD-equivalent value of EUR-, GBP-, and JPY-denominated paper, even as new issuance from rate-sensitive EM borrowers slowed under prohibitive funding costs. The recovery to $34.3 trillion by Q1 2026 reflects a combination of the partial reversal of dollar strength, the return of high-grade borrowers to the market as rate volatility subsided, and structurally rising supply from developed-market sovereign and agency issuers, even as the pace of quarterly net new supply has cooled from the 2025 peak. For fixed income investors, the BIS IDS statistics are the authoritative source for sizing the offshore bond supply universe, tracking cross-border issuance trends by sector and nationality, and calibrating exposure limits in global credit portfolios.

Frequently Asked Questions

International debt securities (IDS) are bonds, notes, and money-market instruments issued outside the issuer's domestic market. The BIS classifies a security as international if at least one of three criteria is met — the location of the issue's registration, the governing law, or the listing location — differs from the residence of the immediate issuer. This definition captures both Eurobond-style instruments (issued in offshore markets, typically denominated in a currency foreign to the issuer) and foreign bonds (denominated in the local currency of the market where they are placed, such as US dollar-denominated Yankee bonds issued in the United States by a non-US borrower). The IDS database excludes purely domestic issuance, making it the definitive measure of cross-border debt capital market activity.

US-nationality issuers account for $6,828.3 billion of the $34,348.6 billion in international debt securities outstanding as of Q1 2026 — just under 20% of the total and the largest single-country share. For fixed income investors, this concentration matters for three reasons. First, bonds from large, well-rated national issuer bases are often eligible for inclusion in major global bond indices, creating systematic benchmark demand. Second, because international bond markets are structurally linked to US monetary policy through dollar-denominated supply and demand, movements in Federal Reserve policy affect refinancing costs for issuers well beyond the United States. Third, the largest nationality groupings in this market — the US, UK, and Germany combined account for $12,481.9 billion, or 36.3% of the global total — are also the primary venues for supranational and agency funding (World Bank, EIB, regional development banks), providing a continuous stream of highly rated, liquid paper for institutional portfolios.

The Federal Reserve's 525 basis-point tightening cycle from March 2022 to July 2023 created severe refinancing stress for emerging market sovereigns and corporates with outstanding USD-denominated international debt. As US Treasury yields rose, credit spreads widened in tandem, making new dollar issuance prohibitively expensive for sub-investment- grade EM borrowers. The BIS data reflects this: Chinese issuer nationality outstanding fell from $592.5 billion in 2021 to $528.9 billion in 2022 and $457.7 billion in 2023 — a $134.8 billion decline over the tightening cycle, driven partly by redemptions outpacing new issuance as Chinese property developers and issuers reined in offshore borrowing. Total global IDS outstanding contracted from $27.8 trillion in 2021 to $27.4 trillion in 2022 as dollar appreciation reduced the USD-equivalent value of non-dollar securities even as new issuance continued. By Q2 2025 the market had recovered to $32.7 trillion as rate volatility eased and high-grade issuance returned.

Portfolio managers and credit analysts use BIS IDS data in three primary ways. First, for supply monitoring — quarterly net change figures ($1,842 billion in Q2 2025) inform expectations for primary market supply pressure, which affects spread levels across investment-grade and high-yield indices. Second, for country-level exposure benchmarking — the nationality-basis breakdown allows analysts to track how much debt a country's issuers have outstanding in international markets versus domestic markets, which is a key input to sovereign and corporate credit risk models. Third, for issuer concentration analysis — US, UK, and German nationality issuers together account for $12,481.9 billion of the $34,348.6 billion outstanding as of Q1 2026 (36.3% of the global total), so a shock to any one of those three issuer bases has an outsized effect on aggregate supply and spread levels across the broader IDS market.

The BIS publishes IDS statistics on two bases. The residence basis attributes securities to the country where the issuer is legally registered, regardless of where the ultimate parent company is headquartered. The nationality basis (used on this page) consolidates all entities of a given ultimate nationality — so a Cayman Islands-registered special purpose vehicle whose ultimate parent is a Chinese corporation would appear under China on the nationality basis, but under the Cayman Islands on the residence basis. For credit risk analysis, the nationality basis is more informative because it reveals the true country concentration of offshore issuance. The residence basis, by contrast, is more relevant for understanding the legal and jurisdictional framework governing specific instruments.

Global international debt securities outstanding reached $34.3 trillion (USD equivalent) in Q1 2026, the most recent quarter published by the BIS. That is up from $33.96 trillion in Q4 2025, $33.39 trillion in Q3 2025, and $32.72 trillion in Q2 2025 — a steady quarterly climb through 2025 as high-grade sovereign, supranational, and corporate issuance continued. Year-on-year, the Q1 2026 figure is up 11.2% from $30.88 trillion in Q1 2025. The series is compiled on a nationality basis: securities are attributed to the ultimate parent's country rather than the country where the issuing entity is legally registered, so a Cayman Islands SPV owned by a US corporation counts toward the US total. BIS updates this figure quarterly, typically with a one-quarter publication lag.

On a nationality-of-issuer basis, United States borrowers accounted for $6,828.3 billion of the $34,348.6 billion outstanding in Q1 2026, just under 20% of the total and the largest single national share. The United Kingdom follows at $3,501.7 billion, then Germany at $2,151.9 billion, China at $1,004.1 billion, and Japan at $866.0 billion. Nationality basis attributes a bond to the country of the parent company rather than the country the issuing entity is registered in, which is why financial centres that host large volumes of offshore issuance do not dominate this ranking. For credit analysts the distinction matters, because it is the parent's balance sheet that ultimately carries the obligation.

The underlying dataset (BIS WS_DEBT_SEC2_PUB) is available through the BIS SDMX API, which returns quarterly, nationality-basis observations in CSV or SDMX-ML format across 50-plus issuer nationalities and both the residence and nationality bases. The endpoint used to compile this page is listed in the sources section below; querying it directly returns the full historical series, which extends back to 1993 for some sub-series, beyond the Q1 2000 to Q1 2026 window shown here. For programmatic use, most analysts pull the CSV export and filter to the relevant issuer, currency, or sector dimension rather than the pre-aggregated top-five country view shown on this page.

Data

About this Dataset

Frequently Asked Questions

What are international debt securities and how does the BIS define them?

Why does US-nationality dominance of the IDS market matter to fixed income investors?

How did the 2022–2023 Fed rate cycle affect EM issuers with USD-denominated debt?

How do fixed income portfolio managers use BIS international debt securities data?

What is the distinction between issuer residence and issuer nationality in BIS data?

What is the latest total for global debt securities outstanding?

Which countries' issuers account for the most international debt securities outstanding?

How can this BIS international debt securities data be accessed via API?

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