Economy · External debt service · Benin
Benin’s external debt service rose to 26.8% of exports in 2024.
26.8% of exports
2024
Up 8.7 pp from 2023.
Updated 8 Oct 2026
In plain words
26.8% of exports
What it is. External debt service adds up the principal and interest a country pays on its foreign debt in a year and compares the total with what it earns from selling goods, services and primary income abroad. Export earnings are the main source of the foreign currency needed to make those payments, so the ratio shows how much of that income is committed to creditors before anything else is bought. It covers debt owed to outside lenders and leaves out domestic borrowing, and a single large repayment can move it sharply in one year.
Lower is better. A lower ratio is better because more export income stays available for imports, investment and reserves, and the country has more room if earnings fall. For Benin the latest figure, 26.8% of exports in 2024, is up from 18.1% of exports a year earlier, a rise of 8.7 percentage points. It is also the highest reading since 2015, well above the low of 3.7% of exports in 2017. The country therefore sits at the top of its own range for this period.
Why it matters. At 26.8% of exports, roughly a quarter of what Benin earns abroad goes to servicing external debt. That leaves less foreign currency for the state to spend on imports and public investment, and it makes the budget more exposed to exchange rate moves and to any weakness in exports. Firms that depend on imported inputs compete with creditor payments for the same foreign currency.
| Period | External debt service · Benin |
|---|---|
| 2015 | 7.5% of exports |
| 2016 | 4.2% of exports |
| 2017 | 3.7% of exports |
| 2018 | 7.9% of exports |
| 2019 | 6.9% of exports |
| 2020 | 7% of exports |
| 2021 | 17.3% of exports |
| 2022 | 11.3% of exports |
| 2023 | 18.1% of exports |
| 2024 | 26.8% of exports |
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators (CC BY 4.0) · Licence: CC BY 4.0
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Strata-AF™ Data, External debt service, Benin, 2024; source World Bank, World Development Indicators (CC BY 4.0), retrieved 8 Oct 2026; https://data.strata-af.com/economy/debt-service/benin
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Methodology
Total debt service as a share of exports of goods, services and primary income. Unit: % of exports.
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators (series DT.TDS.DECT.EX.ZS), retrieved through the World Bank API and published under CC BY 4.0. Updated annually; the World Bank's own source notes apply.