Tunisia’s total debt grew at a slower pace in 2025, rising by 3.9% compared with 4.5% a year earlier, due to a sharper decline in outstanding external debt (-9.9% versus -6.6% in 2024) and a slight moderation in domestic debt growth (+9.6% versus +9.8%), the Central Bank of Tunisia (BCT) said in its 2025 Annual Report.
The BCT said the slowdown in domestic debt growth, which stabilized at TND 199.254 billion, was mainly driven by slower growth in government domestic borrowing (+21.6% versus +24%) and, to a lesser extent, lower growth in borrowing by other non-financial economic agents (+3.3% versus +3.6%).
As for external debt, it continued the downward trend that began in 2023, falling to TND 67.160 billion at the end of 2025.
According to the central bank, this decline was primarily due to a negative volume effect, as repayments of long-term external debt principal exceeded external financing mobilized during 2025, as well as an unfavorable exchange-rate effect linked to fluctuations of the Tunisian dinar against the main borrowing currencies.
The BCT also noted that the composition of total debt continues to shift in favor of domestic debt, whose share of the total rose to nearly 75% in 2025, up from 71% in 2024 and 67% in 2023.
By institutional sector, outstanding government debt, which accounted for nearly half of total debt, increased at a slower pace at the end of 2025 (+5.2%) compared with +6.6% in 2024.
Meanwhile, debt held by other non-financial economic agents continued to grow at a moderate pace (+2.7% versus +2.5% a year earlier), the BCT said.
The central bank added that public debt servicing costs declined by 1.5% in 2025 to TND 24.4415 billion, reflecting a 12.5% drop in external debt servicing, driven by lower repayments of both principal (-10.9%) and interest (-18.9%).
By contrast, domestic debt servicing increased by 8%, with interest payments rising 14.2% and principal repayments increasing 5.3%.
The BCT expects public debt servicing to continue dropping in 2026, falling by 5.7% to TND 23.057 billion.
