According to the State Budget for 2025, the state will have to pay 18.2 billion dinars in principal on the public debt, including 8.5 billion dinars on the external public debt and 9.7 billion dinars to cover the principal on the local debt.
In addition, 6.5 billion dinars will be paid in interest on the public debt, divided into 4.6 billion dinars to pay interest on the domestic public debt and 1.9 billion dinars to pay interest on the external public debt.
As a result, public debt servicing will amount to 24.7 billion dinars in 2025 (14.3 billion dinars domestically and 10.4 billion dinars abroad), compared to 25 billion dinars estimated for the current year, 20.75 billion dinars in 2023 and 9.6 billion dinars in 2019.
In terms of public debt repayments, we have identified 93.6% of domestic repayments provided for in the State budget and only 68.6% of foreign debt repayments. On the local market, domestic debt repayments will not start until 2026.
Repayments of domestic public debt are concentrated in June (1,808 million dinars), January (1,237 million dinars) and March (1,127 million dinars).
In addition, the State is expected to repay 900 million dinars in December 2024, before repaying 500 million dinars on the last instalment of the BCT advance contracted in December 2020, for a total of 2,800 million dinars.
In terms of external debt repayments, on January 30, 2025, Tunisia’s largest loan on the international financial market (contracted in 2015 for 10 years), namely the “Dollar Bonds_10 years_5.75% 1000 M $ Reg S_30/01/2025”, will be repaid for a principal amount of 3,165 million dinars, plus interest at 5.75%, i.e. 182 million dinars, for a total of 3,347 million dinars, equivalent to 15 days of imports.
In January 2015, Tunisia was rated BB- with negative outlook by Fitch Ratings and Ba3 with negative outlook by Moody’s.
Overall, the accumulation of domestic and external public debt repayments shows that in January 2025 the state will have to pay at least 4,904 million dinars (in principal alone) to meet its obligations.
The month of June is also likely to be quite tight, with 2,151 million dinars in principal repayments on the public debt. Tunisia is also continuing to meet its commitments to the IMF, with repayments (including interest) of 1,511 million dinars for the whole of 2025.
