Sri Lanka’s total public debt stood at US$97.952 billion, or Rs. 32.977 trillion, as of 30 June, according to the latest report from the Public Debt Management Office of the Ministry of Finance.
Central government debt accounts for almost all of it: Rs. 31.999 trillion, or US$95.047 billion, Ada Derana reported. The balance is made up of US$2.885 billion in state-owned enterprise debt carrying government guarantees, and US$20 million owed by provincial councils and provincial institutions.
Domestic debt is the larger half
Central government domestic debt reached US$57.039 billion, or Rs. 19.203 trillion, at the end of June.
Treasury bonds account for the bulk of that — US$47.732 billion, or Rs. 16.069 trillion — with outstanding Treasury bills at US$7.045 billion, or Rs. 2.372 trillion.
Foreign debt rose over the quarter
Central government foreign debt stood at US$38.008 billion at the end of June, up from US$37.468 billion at the end of the first quarter — an increase of US$540 million over three months.
It breaks down into three roughly comparable blocks:
- Multilateral debt: US$14.802 billion
- Commercial debt: US$12.409 billion
- Bilateral debt: US$10.797 billion
Who Sri Lanka owes
Among bilateral creditors, China remains the largest at US$5.0067 billion, followed by Japan at US$2.2727 billion and India at US$853.9 million.
Among multilateral lenders, the Asian Development Bank holds the largest claim at US$6.8851 billion, ahead of the World Bank at US$4.6662 billion and the International Monetary Fund at US$2.6152 billion.
Of the US$12.4091 billion in external commercial debt, US$10.0071 billion sits in International Sovereign Bonds — the instruments restructured in 2024. A further US$2.402 billion is held under China-related Asian Development Bank term loan facilities.
What the report does not settle
Ada Derana’s account of the report does not give a debt-to-GDP ratio, a comparison with the same point in 2025, or the maturity profile of the domestic stock — the figures that would show whether the increase in foreign debt reflects new borrowing, exchange-rate movement or disbursements under existing facilities.
No other verified newsroom had published the quarterly figures at the time of writing, so the numbers above rest on a single report of the PDMO document.
Context
The composition reflects the settlement reached after default. The government has said the Official Creditor Committee process is nearing completion, and the ISB exchange completed in 2024 converted the bulk of commercial claims into new instruments — which is why a single line, International Sovereign Bonds, still carries more than US$10 billion of the total.
The reading also arrives in a month when inflation breached the Central Bank’s upper target band for a second time, and as the government seeks new concessional lending, including a US$200 million World Bank facility for tourism.
