List of sovereign debt crises

The list of sovereign debt crises involves the inability of independent countries to meet its liabilities, as they become due. These include:

a sovereign default, where a government suspends debt repayments;
a debt restructuring plan, where the government agrees with other countries, or unilaterally reduces its debt repayments;
requiring assistance from the International Monetary Fund or another international source.

Debts could be owed either to private parties within a country, to foreign investors, or to other countries.

The following table includes actual sovereign defaults and debt restructuring of independent countries since 1557.^[1]

[1]

Country	Date	Type, causes, consequences and references
Angola	1976	^[2]
Angola	1992–2002
Cameroon	2004
Egypt	1876	The crisis caused the Urabi revolt and the subsequent British invasion of Egypt in 1882.
Gabon	1999–2005	^[2]
Ghana	1982	^[2]
Ghana	2022	^[3]
Liberia	1989–2006	^[2]
Madagascar	2002
Mozambique	1980
Rwanda	1995
Sierra Leone	1997–98
Sudan	1991
Tunisia	1986	^[4]
Zaire	1979	^[2]
Zambia	2020	Default due to high debt levels, following the COVID-19 pandemic and commodity price drops. Followed by the IMF bailout, in 2022.^[5]
Zimbabwe	2006	See Hyperinflation in Zimbabwe^[2]

Country	Date	Type, causes, consequences and references
China	1921	^[2]
	1932
	1939
Indonesia	1966	^[6]
Japan	1946–52	Due to an over-issued national bond amounting to more than twice as GDP, bank accounts were blocked. (bank blockade [ja])^[2]
Kuwait	1990–91	^[2]
Lebanon	2020	Lebanon defaulted on US$1.2 billion in Eurobonds.^[7]
Myanmar	1984	^[2]
Myanmar	1987
Mongolia	1997–2000
North Korea	1975–1990	^[8]
Sri Lanka	2022	Sri Lankan economic crisis (2019–2024)^[9]^[10]
Thailand	1997–2007	1997 Asian financial crisis
Vietnam	1975	^[2]

Country	Date	Type, causes, consequences and references
Austria	1811	^[11]
	1816	Caused by the War of the Sixth Coalition. Ended by the establishment of Austria's central bank: Oesterreichische Nationalbank.^[11]
	1945	^[2]
Croatia	1993–96	^[2]
Cyprus	2012-2013	2012–2013 Cypriot financial crisis
Denmark	1813	Danish state bankruptcy of 1813^[2]
France	1788	On 17 August 1788, the royal treasury began paying creditors in IOUs rather than money, after service on debt (mainly from the Seven Years' War and American War of Independence) had depleted the royal treasury to just 400,000 livres (one day's worth of state expenses). To restore state credit, the royal ministry called the Estates General of 1789 to make structural reforms to state revenue.^[12]
France	1797	Deflation, after the withdrawal of the assignat and mandat territorial led Finance Minister Dominique-Vincent Ramel-Nogaret to repudiate of 2/3 of French state debt.^[13]
Germany	1812	State spending during the Napoleonic Wars was extremely high, due, in large manner, to the high level of military expenditures.
	1932	Under the Versailles Treaty ending the First World War, Germany was forced to make war reparations. The Young Plan of 1929 was meant to settle the structure, but in the Great Depression repayments became impossible. In the Lausanne Conference of 1932, the U.K. and France agreed to a suspension of payments. The U.S. Congress rejected it, but payments ceased, until the implementation of the London Agreement on German External Debts in 1953.
	1948	See London Agreement on German External Debts^[2]
Greece	2012	^[14]
Greece	2015	Due to the Greek government-debt crisis, Greece failed to make a €1.6 billion payment to the IMF on time (payment was made with a 20-day delay^[15]^[16]).
Russia	1918	Repudiation of Tsarist debts by Bolshevik revolutionaries.^[17]
	1998	After world commodity prices dropped on major Russian exports (particularly metals and oil), the 1998 Russian financial crisis ensued. Mounting debts led to the government declaring a moratorium on payments to international creditors.
	2022	2022 Russian debt default^[18]
Spain	1936–39	^[2]
Sweden	1812	Military expenditures as a consequence of the Napoleonic Wars.^{[citation needed]}
Ukraine	1998–2000	^[2]
Yugoslavia	1983	Avoided default through a multinational emergency loan.^{[citation needed]}

Country	Date	Type, causes, consequences and references
Antigua and Barbuda	1998–2005	^[2]
Barbados	2018	Defaulted on its Eurobonds, after the uncovering of its high sovereign debt in terms of debt-to-GDP ratio.^[19]
Dominica	2003–05	^[2]
Dominican Republic	1975–2001	Latin American debt crisis^[2]
El Salvador	1981–96	^[2]
Grenada	2004–05
Mexico	1850
Mexico	1982	Latin American debt crisis
Panama	1988–89	^[2]
United States	1790	Crisis began in 1782. Ended by the Compromise of 1790 and the Funding Act of 1790.^[20]^[21]^{[better source needed]}
	1814	Late interest payments, due to the War of 1812
	1875	US devalued the USD (Specie Payment Resumption Act)
	1865	The Confederate States of America lost the American civil war and ceased to exist, thus defaulting on their debts. The United States passed the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1868, which prohibited assumption of the debts.
	1933	Suspension of federal payments in gold, amid a bank crisis and international run on gold reserves.^[22]^[2]
	1953	Congress refuses to raise the United States debt ceiling, forcing the federal government to reduce spending, monetize gold and use cash balances with banks, until the ceiling was eventually raised.
	1995-96	Congress fails to reach agreement with President Clinton on the budget, resulting in the United States federal government shutdowns of 1995–1996; Republicans also threaten not to raise the debt ceiling.
	2011	2011 U.S. debt-ceiling crisis
	2013	2013 U.S. debt-ceiling crisis
	2023	2023 U.S. debt-ceiling crisis

Country	Date	Type, causes, consequences and references
Argentina	1827	Default^[23]
	1890	Baring crisis^[23]
	1982	Latin American debt crisis^[23]
	1988–89	Latin American debt crisis^[23]
	2001	Following years of instability, the Argentine economic crisis (1999–2002) came to a head and a new government announced it could not meet its public debt obligations.^[23]
	2005–16	Argentine debt restructuring.
	2014	^[24]^[25]
	2020	^[26]
Bolivia	1927	^[2]
Brazil	1986–87
Brazil	1990
Ecuador	2020	^[27]^[28]
Paraguay	1874	The payment of loans taken in the English market between 1871-72 was stopped, due to bad economic conditions.^[29]
Paraguay	1920	The payment of foreign loans was once again suspended, due to adverse economic and political conditions.^[30]
Peru	1850	^[2]
Suriname	2001–02
Suriname	2020	^[31]
Uruguay	1937	^[2]
Venezuela	1995–97
	1998
	2017	Venezuela defaulted on US$65 billion in external debt in November 2017, after years of unsustainable borrowing and a crash in global oil prices.^[32]

List of sovereign debt crises

Africa

Asia

Europe

North America

South America

Oceania

See also

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Fact Checks

Country	Date	Type, causes, consequences and references
Australia	1931	Australia defaulted on its entire stock of domestic debt owed to bond and note holders. See: Great Depression in Australia.
Solomon Islands	1995–2004	Default on domestic debt, not external debt.^[2]