Business & Markets · Credit to private sector · Guinea-Bissau
Guinea-Bissau’s credit to private sector fell to 10% of GDP in 2025.
10% of GDP
2025
Down 0.74 pp from 2024.
Updated 8 Oct 2026
In plain words
10% of GDP
What it is. This measure adds up the loans and other claims that domestic financial institutions hold against private households and firms, then divides the total by the size of the economy. The ratio moves with lending and also with GDP, so it can fall when output grows faster than credit. Lending from informal sources and borrowing by the public sector sit outside it.
Neither way is good in itself. A higher ratio can mean a deeper banking system that funds more investment, and it can also mean heavier debt and more exposure to a credit bust. A lower ratio can mean cautious lending or firms and households shut out of finance. For that reason the direction alone carries no verdict. The latest figure for 2025 is 10% of GDP, down 0.74 percentage points from 10.7% of GDP a year earlier. Since 2016 the series has ranged from a low of 7% of GDP in 2016 to a high of 14.6% of GDP in 2022, so the current level sits between the two, closer to the low end.
Why it matters. At about a tenth of GDP, formal private credit is a small part of the Guinea-Bissau economy. Most households and small firms have little access to bank loans for working capital, equipment or housing. The slip from the 2022 peak means that the pool of formal borrowing relative to output has shrunk since then.
| Period | Credit to private sector · Guinea-Bissau |
|---|---|
| 2016 | 7% of GDP |
| 2017 | 11.7% of GDP |
| 2018 | 13.9% of GDP |
| 2019 | 13.3% of GDP |
| 2020 | 13.6% of GDP |
| 2021 | 13.3% of GDP |
| 2022 | 14.6% of GDP |
| 2023 | 12.6% of GDP |
| 2024 | 10.7% of GDP |
| 2025 | 10% of GDP |
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators (CC BY 4.0) · Licence: CC BY 4.0
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Strata-AF™ Data, Credit to private sector, Guinea-Bissau, 2025; source World Bank, World Development Indicators (CC BY 4.0), retrieved 8 Oct 2026; https://data.strata-af.com/business/private-sector-credit/guinea-bissau
Data insights · Worked out from the published figures
What this means
Working this out from the published figures…
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Methodology
Domestic credit to the private sector as a share of GDP. Unit: % of GDP.
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators (series FS.AST.PRVT.GD.ZS), retrieved through the World Bank API and published under CC BY 4.0. Updated annually; the World Bank's own source notes apply.