Madar (Rabat) - Morocco's external debt reached $80.5 billion at the end of 2025, up from about $68.4 billion a year earlier, a rise of 17.8%, according to the World Bank's International Debt Report 2026, Moroccan daily Le Matin reported on Saturday, 7 November.
The increase outpaced that of low- and middle-income countries as a whole, whose external debt rose 5.5% to a record $9.4 trillion, according to the same report. Over ten years, Morocco's external debt stock has grown from $44.8 billion to $80.5 billion.
Public and publicly guaranteed debt accounts for $58.4 billion, nearly three quarters of the total, with the remainder split between $12 billion in unguaranteed private debt and $10.1 billion in short-term debt.
External debt now equals 45% of gross national income and 102% of export earnings as measured by the World Bank, both ratios having risen in 2025. Debt service (principal and interest), however, weighed less: 5% of gross national income and 12% of export earnings, a burden down 14.2% year on year relative to exports.
The report's Morocco profile does not quantify how much of the increase stems from exchange-rate effects, although the World Bank notes globally that a weaker dollar raised the dollar value of debts denominated in other currencies, the newspaper said.
Multilateral institutions hold nearly half of Morocco's public and publicly guaranteed external debt, or $28.7 billion, of which $18.1 billion is owed to the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the African Development Bank alone, compared with $20.5 billion held by private creditors and $9.2 billion by bilateral lenders.
On public and publicly guaranteed commitments signed in 2025, Morocco secured an average interest rate of 1.9% over 26 years from official creditors, against 5.4% over nine years from private creditors.
