Spain’s central bank confirmed on Wednesday that the public debt for 2023 stood at 107.7% of GDP, 3.9 percentage points lower than the previous year and four tenths below the government’s forecast of 108.1% of GDP.
This improvement in the debt ratio was possible thanks to the economy’s growth, as debt reached 1,573,754 million euros, up 4.7% from 2022 and the highest closing level in the historical series.
As is customary, the bulk of the debt remained with the central administration, which ended 2023 at a record 1,434,090 million euros, up 5.5%, equal to 98.1% of GDP (2.8 percentage points lower). Autonomous communities also increased their debt by 2.6%, to 325,234 million, a figure that corresponds to 22.2% of GDP (1.4 points lower), and local corporations rose by 1.2%, to 23,318 million, equivalent to 1.6% of GDP, down one tenth.
The Social Security system finished the year with debt of 116,173 million, up 9.4%, equal to 7.9% of GDP, the same as the previous year.
The total debt of the various subsectors does not match the overall total because some amounts are counted twice, due to loans between administrations.
Valencia Region at the Top
In 2023 the Community of Valencia remained the most indebted region, reaching 42.2% of its GDP, even though it reduced its indebtedness by 1.3 percentage points from 2022. After Valencia, the most indebted regions were Castilla-La Mancha (31.9% of GDP), Murcia (31.2%), Catalonia (31%), the Balearic Islands (22.3%), Extremadura (21.8%), and Aragon (20.3%).
The least indebted regions were Navarra (12% of GDP), Canary Islands (12.2%), Basque Country (12.4%), and Madrid (12.6%).
All autonomous communities reduced their debt in 2023, especially the Balearic Islands (2.7 points of GDP), Cantabria (2.1 points), Catalonia (2.1 points), and Navarra (2 points).
Madrid Reaches 1.960 Billion
The Bank of Spain also released data on municipalities with more than 300,000 inhabitants, led by Madrid with debt of 1,960 million, up 12.8% from the previous year. It was followed by Barcelona with 1,333 million (up 19.3%), and much farther behind Zaragoza (603 million, down 4.1%), Murcia (269 million, up 7.6%), and Seville (239 million, up 10.6%).
Regarding the instruments in which Spanish public debt was held at the end of 2023, most of the debt was in debt securities (1,397,719 million), both long-term (1,326,054 million) and short-term (71,665 million). The remainder was split between loans (170,748 million) and cash and deposits (5,286 million).