United Kingdom national debt

The United Kingdom national debt is the outstanding stock of liabilities owed by the public sector of the United Kingdom. In official statistics it is most commonly reported as public sector net debt excluding public sector banks (PSND ex), which is often referred to as "the national debt".

At the end of November 2025, PSND ex was provisionally estimated at £2,927.7 billion, equivalent to 95.6% of gross domestic product (GDP).

Debt is primarily financed through the issuance of gilt-edged securities (gilts) and Treasury bills by HM Treasury via the Debt Management Office (DMO), alongside retail savings products issued by National Savings and Investments.

National debt is a stock measure and differs from the government's deficit or surplus, which measures borrowing over a period. Other definitions are used in some contexts, including general government gross debt (also known as Maastricht debt) for international comparisons under the European System of Accounts (ESA 2010).

Approximately 8% of the UK national debt is owned by the British government due to the Bank of England's quantitative easing programme, so approximately 8% of the cost of servicing the debt is paid by the government to itself.

In 2017, due to the Government's budget deficit (PSNCR), the national debt increased by £46 billion. The Cameron–Clegg coalition government in 2010 planned that they would eliminate the deficit by the 2015/16 financial year. However, by 2014 they admitted that the structural deficit would not be eliminated until the financial year 2017/18. This forecast was pushed back to 2018/19 in March 2015, and to 2019/20 in July 2015, before the target of a return to surplus at any particular time was finally abandoned by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne in July 2016.