Legal

Terms of Use

Effective: June 2026. By using global-debt-clock.com (the "Site"), you agree to these terms. If you don't agree, please don't use the Site.

1. Acceptance of terms

These terms apply to all visitors, and to anyone using our free API or embed widget. We may update these terms from time to time; continued use of the Site after a change means you accept the updated terms.

2. Educational estimates — not certified figures, not financial advice

The figures on this site should be treated as reasonable estimates, not exact accounting totals. Government debt is inherently imprecise: different methodologies (gross vs net debt, general government vs central government, including vs excluding implicit liabilities such as pension obligations) can produce figures that differ by trillions of dollars. Actual government debt changes through discrete bond issuances and official budget processes, not continuously — the "live" counters are an educational illustration of approximate scale and pace, not a real-time accounting feed.

This site does not provide financial, investment, or policy advice. For authoritative figures, consult the IMF World Economic Outlook or World Bank Data directly.

3. Data license

The underlying dataset is available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0). You may copy, redistribute, and adapt the data for any purpose, including commercially, as long as you give appropriate attribution to "Global Debt Clock" with a link back to global-debt-clock.com.

Need a commercial embed license, a bulk/historical export, or a support arrangement beyond the free terms below? Contact [email protected].

4. Acceptable use of the free API

The API at /api/* is free, open, and requires no key. In exchange, please:

Cache responses reasonably rather than polling faster than about once per second per client — the underlying figures are computed, not fetched from a live external feed, so high-frequency polling doesn't get you fresher data.
Don't use the API in a way that degrades service for other users (e.g. large parallel scraping bursts).
Attribute "Global Debt Clock" when displaying the data publicly.

We reserve the right to rate-limit or block traffic that abuses the API. There is no SLA or uptime guarantee for the free tier.

5. Embed terms

The iframe widget (see the widget builder and journalist & publisher resources) is free for non-commercial and editorial use, provided you keep the visible attribution link back to global-debt-clock.com intact. For commercial embedding (e.g. inside a paid product), contact us for a license.

6. Intellectual property

The Site's design, code, text, and branding (aside from the underlying CC BY 4.0 dataset described above) are the property of Global Debt Clock and may not be copied or reproduced without permission, except as reasonably needed to use the embed widget or API as intended.

7. No warranty; limitation of liability

The Site and its data are provided "as is," without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including accuracy, completeness, or fitness for a particular purpose. To the fullest extent permitted by law, Global Debt Clock is not liable for any damages arising from your use of, or reliance on, the Site or its data.

8. Changes to these terms

We may revise these terms as the Site evolves. Material changes will be reflected by updating the effective date at the top of this page.

9. Contact

Questions about these terms, licensing, or the data? Email [email protected]. These terms are governed by generally applicable law in the jurisdiction where a dispute is properly brought; we don't designate a specific venue beyond what applicable law requires.