• China is Zimbabwe’s largest bilateral creditor, with US$2.07bn exposure, much of it tied to major power, airport and telecommunications projects.
• Most Western debt is legacy arrears, with Paris Club creditors holding US$4.17bn, but only US$47m classified as outstanding debt.
• Afreximbank is a key active lender, while Treasury is ring-fencing SOE revenues to prevent project debt from becoming a wider fiscal burden.

Harare- Zimbabwe’s Public and Publicly Guaranteed debt reached US$21.8 billion at the end of December 2025, equivalent to 37.4% of GDP. External debt accounted for about US$11.8 billion, but the headline figure conceals a sharply divided creditor structure.At the centre of that structure are China, the World Bank, Afreximbank, Germany and France. However, these creditors do not carry the same economic meaning for Zimbabwe. Some represent money still being financed and serviced; others largely represent historical obligations that have accumulated interest and penalties over years of arrears.

Zimbabwe’s external creditors broadly fall into two groups. Bilateral creditors are individual countries that lend directly to another government or through their state-backed institutions. China, Germany, France, Japan and India fall into this category. Multilateral creditors, by contrast, are international financial institutions owned or supported by several countries. Examples relevant to Zimbabwe include the World Bank, African Development Bank and Afreximbank. Their lending is generally channelled through institutional programmes, development projects or trade-financing facilities rather than a single country-to-country arrangement.

The latest debt data show why this distinction matters. Zimbabwe owed US$6.45 billion to bilateral creditors at the end of 2025. Of this, only US$1.60 billion was debt outstanding, while approximately US$4.86 billion consisted of arrears and penalties.In other words, roughly three-quarters of bilateral debt was no longer ordinary current borrowing. It was accumulated obligations from the past.

China was Zimbabwe’s largest bilateral creditor, with an exposure of US$2.07 billion.But unlike most bilateral creditors, the overwhelming majority of China’s exposure remains associated with actual outstanding debt. China had US$1.40 billion in debt outstanding, against about US$668 million in principal, interest and other arrears.That means approximately 68% of China’s bilateral exposure was still represented by outstanding debt, compared with only about 7% for the Paris Club as a group.

The difference reflects the nature of the lending.Much of Zimbabwe’s Chinese borrowing was directed towards identifiable infrastructure projects rather than general budget support. The Public Debt Management Office records major China Eximbank facilities for Hwange Thermal Power Station Units 7 and 8, Kariba South Power Station, NetOne, TelOne, Victoria Falls Airport and Harare International Airport.

The Hwange expansion alone carries US$671.7 million in outstanding debt, making it the largest single facility in the on-lending portfolio. Kariba South carries another US$223.9 million, while NetOne’s Network Expansion Phase 2 accounts for US$185.6 million.

This changes the character of the Chinese exposure.Zimbabwe is not simply carrying a large historical claim from Beijing. It is servicing debt linked to power generation, airports, telecommunications and broadband infrastructure that remains embedded in the economy.

The Paris Club, comprising mainly traditional Western bilateral creditors, had a combined exposure of US$4.17 billion. Only US$47 million was debt outstanding. The overwhelming balance OF about US$4.12 billion , consisted of arrears and penalties.

Germany illustrates the problem particularly clearly. Its total exposure was US$1.06 billion, but only US$28 million was debt outstanding. France had US$878 million on the books, of which virtually all was arrears and penalties, with only about US$1 million recorded as outstanding debt.These numbers mean that Germany and France may rank among Zimbabwe’s largest creditors on paper, but they are not equivalent to China in terms of current financing.Their claims largely represent the accumulated legacy of Zimbabwe’s prolonged external debt arrears.

The same distinction applies to Zimbabwe’s multilateral creditors.The World Bank, for example, held approximately US$1.61 billion of Zimbabwe’s external debt at the end of 2025. Yet around 96% was in arrears. The African Development Bank faced a similar situation, with approximately 97.5% of its exposure in arrears.This is why the nominal size of a creditor’s claim can be misleading.A creditor can appear extremely large on Zimbabwe’s debt ledger while providing virtually no new financing.

That helps explain why Afreximbank has become particularly important. Its roughly US$1.18 billion exposure was not dominated by arrears, making it fundamentally different from the World Bank and traditional Paris Club creditors.Afreximbank-linked facilities have also been structured around identifiable repayment mechanisms, including arrangements connected to export earnings. This makes the institution one of the most consequential sources of active external financing for Zimbabwe.

The project loans also raise a separate question: who ultimately repays the debt? The US$1.90 billion on-lent portfolio at end-2025 covered state-owned enterprises including ZPC, NetOne, TelOne and the Airports Company of Zimbabwe.

Treasury has therefore instructed these entities to establish dedicated debt-service sinking funds, with revenues from their operations ring-fenced to meet repayment obligations. The policy is significant because the government is trying to prevent project debt from automatically becoming sovereign budget debt.

The principle is straightforward: if a power station, telecommunications company or airport benefits from a loan, the cash flows generated by that asset should contribute to servicing the borrowing.Where state-owned enterprises struggle financially, pressure can ultimately migrate back to the Treasury. The Government has therefore retained oversight of the sinking funds and the performance of the underlying facilities.

Zimbabwe’s creditor structure is consequently more complicated than a simple list of who is owed the most.China represents active, infrastructure-linked borrowing. Afreximbank represents increasingly important regional financing. Paris Club creditors and the World Bank largely represent the unresolved legacy of Zimbabwe’s arrears.

That split also helps explain Zimbabwe’s wider debt-resolution strategy.The country is effectively managing two debt problems at once: servicing the current facilities that keep infrastructure and external trade functioning, while attempting to resolve the historical arrears that have restricted access to conventional international finance.

The Government’s debt-resolution and arrears-clearance programme is therefore about more than reducing a number on a balance sheet. It is about changing the composition of Zimbabwe’s creditors and, ultimately, reopening access to a broader pool of financing.Until that happens, the headline debt figure will continue to obscure the more important question.

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