Australian households - second most indebted in the world
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) provides internationally comparable data on household credit, debt servicing and residential property prices. Together, the three measures provide a useful picture of both household debt and the value of the housing assets sitting behind it.
At the end of 2025, Australian household debt was equivalent to 114.0% of GDP — second highest among the 15 advanced comparable economies, behind only Switzerland. The peer median was 83.1%.
The BIS debt-service ratio (DSR) estimates the share of household income required for interest payments and principal repayments. Australia again ranked second, at 15.5%, behind Norway’s 20.7%. The median among the other countries with available household data was 10.0%. Cross-country DSR levels should be interpreted with some caution because financial structures differ, but Australia’s gap is nevertheless substantial.
Finally, BIS real residential property prices remove consumer-price inflation from movements in house prices. Between the December quarter of 2019 and December quarter of 2025, Australian real residential property prices rose 22.4%. That was the third-largest increase among the 15 countries, behind the Netherlands and Spain. The peer median increase was only 2.6%.
The three charts tell a consistent and well known story. Australia combines exceptionally strong real housing-asset appreciation with exceptionally high household leverage and debt-servicing commitments.
| Switzerland | 123.0% | |
| Australia | 114.0% | |
| Canada | 100.6% | |
| Netherlands | 93.8% | |
| New Zealand | 91.1% | |
| South Korea | 88.6% | |
| Norway | 87.3% | |
| Denmark | 84.1% | |
| Sweden | 82.1% | |
| United Kingdom | 73.6% | |
| United States | 68.1% | |
| Japan | 61.1% | |
| France | 59.7% | |
| Germany | 48.9% | |
| Spain | 42.8% |
| Norway | 20.7% | |
| Australia | 15.5% | |
| Canada | 14.0% | |
| Netherlands | 13.0% | |
| Denmark | 11.7% | |
| Sweden | 11.4% | |
| South Korea | 11.2% | |
| United Kingdom | 8.8% | |
| United States | 8.0% | |
| Japan | 7.5% | |
| France | 6.0% | |
| Germany | 5.4% | |
| Spain | 5.1% |
| Netherlands | +26.3% | |
| Spain | +22.6% | |
| Australia | +22.4% | |
| United States | +19.6% | |
| Switzerland | +17.7% | |
| Japan | +14.3% | |
| Denmark | +14.0% | |
| Norway | +5.3% | |
| South Korea | −0.1% | |
| New Zealand | −0.9% | |
| United Kingdom | −1.8% | |
| France | −2.1% | |
| Germany | −6.2% | |
| Canada | −7.4% | |
| Sweden | −9.2% |