The public debt ratio fell from 93.6% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to 89.7% in 2025, according to data released this Monday (2 February) by the Bank of Portugal (BdP), a sharper drop than predicted by the Government.
In the State Budget for 2026 (OE2026), the executive predicted that the weight of public debt in GDP would stand at 90.2% last year, but it ended up being below 90%, according to the BdP.
It is a reduction of 3.9 percentage points compared to the value recorded at the end of 2024according to central bank calculations, considering the GDP estimate for 2025.
On the other hand, In absolute terms, public debt, from Maastricht’s perspective, totaled 274.8 billion euros in December 2025, 3.9 billion euros more than at the end of 2024.
This variation “reflected, above all, the increase in savings certificates (+5.4 billion euros) and long-term debt securities (+4.0 billion euros)”, explains the BdP, while, in the opposite direction, loans fell by 3.5 billion euros.
The decrease in loans was “essentially justified by repayments of 2.5 billion euros to the European Financial Stabilization Mechanism (MEEF) and 1.5 billion euros to the European Financial Stability Fund (EFFS)”.
For this year, the Government included in OE2026 the forecast of a public debt ratio of 87.8% of GDP. This value remains, however, above the targets established in the European Union’s budgetary rules, which determine that the weight of public debt must remain below 60% of GDP.
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