What are the countries with the least debt in the world? If I had no obligation to pay back money, I’d borrow $18 Trillion just as the United States has. Heck, I’d get more than that. I can find ways to spend it! You’ll see below that the country that elected Drumpf is at the top of borrowers.The European Union isn’t that far off either, with $13 trillion in external debt. Of course, by the time Brexit is complete, the number will drop considerably since the United Kingdom is about $8 trillion in debt on its own.
For a wealth of reasons, countries around the world sometimes need to borrow money, but not all of them – as evidence of these countries with the least debt in the world.
So, with as much money as country governments need to fulfill their promises, is there any country not in debt? There is one as you will see at the end of this article.
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If you’re looking for a full list, you can check out our list on the 10 Countries That Have the Most Debt in 2017.
The numbers have barely changed in the past few years, so the answer to the question “which country had the most debt in 2016” is the United States. Similarly, the list of the national debt by country in 2015 is pretty much the same with the one of the national debt by country in 2016. The numbers may change slightly, but not enough to make that much change to a list comprising some 200 countries.
Some countries choose to borrow money either from other countries or from the citizens through the sale of bonds, while others prefer to live within their means. This is the same situation as that of us, the citizens, who sometimes choose to borrow money from the bank or family members, while other prefer to make do with what they have and not become indebted. Those least indebted make our list of countries with the least debt in the world.
In order to create our list of countries with least debt in the world today, we checked out the data from the Central Intelligence Agency on public debt by country. It should be mentioned, of course, that data is not always the freshest available, some coming from 2016, while other pieces of it coming from farther back, such as 2014. It’s all pretty normal when taking into consideration that this type of information is not always released on time, or just simply released every few years. We also decided that it would be best if the data we used was treated as a percentage of the GDP. After all, while a nation can have a smaller debt in value than, let’s say, the United States, it will also have a lower GDP and weight differently for them.
It’s nice to have access to such data and the CIA is known to gather it all up as it comes, updating often its library of charts, whether we’re talking about public debt, data about the military, energy, or transportation, to name a few.
That being said, here are the top 10 countries with the least debt in the world.
