Nigeria's external debt rose to $145.02 billion at the end of 2025, up 6.6 per cent on the previous year, according to the World Bank's International Debt Report 2026, released on Thursday 5 November.

The total covers borrowing by the government, state-owned enterprises and the private sector from foreign lenders. Public and publicly guaranteed debt accounted for $62.4 billion of the total, private debt without a government guarantee stood at $54.48 billion, and short-term external debt amounted to $28.14 billion.

The figure is about $61.8 billion higher than the $83.21 billion recorded in 2015, a rise of 74.3 per cent over the decade. Multilateral institutions held the largest share of the public debt, at $31.37 billion, including $18.53 billion owed to the World Bank's International Development Association. China remained Nigeria's largest bilateral creditor, owed $5.67 billion.

Servicing takes a bigger share

Although the debt stock grew, two measures of the burden improved. External debt relative to exports fell by 4.3 per cent to 212 per cent, while the debt-to-gross-national-income ratio dropped by 6.6 per cent to 51 per cent.

The cost of servicing the debt, however, moved the other way. Debt service rose by 9.6 per cent to 19 per cent of exports, and by 6.9 per cent to five per cent of gross national income.

The World Bank warned that rising repayment obligations were squeezing the money developing economies have left for infrastructure, jobs, education and healthcare. Its chief statistician, Haishan Fu, said: "Low- and middle-income countries are borrowing more, paying more, and, in many cases, leaving less for long-term development."

Across low- and middle-income countries, debt-service payments reached $1.4 trillion in 2025, the fifth consecutive annual increase. Between 2022 and 2025, those countries paid about $436.1 billion more in debt servicing than they received in new financing.