Type what your household owes. See it against every household in the country, including the ones who owe nothing at all.
My household owes € and earns € a year before tax in Ireland. Age of the reference person:
Income is pre-filled with the published median for Ireland: €68,500. Change it for your own answer, or leave it and read the country's typical picture.
Your debt vs gross income · households in Ireland
51%
Above the typical load.
Heavier than the 42.5% median, but short of the 249.6% carried by the most-leveraged tenth.
You owe €34,700 against €68,500 of gross income. The typical indebted household in Ireland owes 42.5% of its gross income. You are at 1.2× that.
Read-out one
Where that amount sits.
65.6% of households in Ireland carry debt at all, and the survey publishes the distribution only for them. Among those households the median debt is €34,700 and the average is €91,600. The gap between the two is the handful of very large mortgages pulling the average up.
Lightest tenth
€900
P10 of indebted households
One in ten indebted households in Ireland owes less than this.
Median debt
€35K
P50 of indebted households
Half owe more, half owe less. The average is €92K.
Heaviest tenth
€248K
P90 of indebted households
One in ten indebted households in Ireland owes more than this.
€34,700 sits at roughly the 50th percentile of indebted households in Ireland, read among households with debt rather than among all of them.
Read-out two
Debt against income.
The ratio that lenders and central banks actually watch. In Ireland the median indebted household owes 42.5% of its gross annual income; the most-leveraged tenth are at 249.6%. Across the euro area the median is 66.0%.
0%270%
You: 51%
Median: 42.5%
Top decile: 249.6%
One number worth reading twice: 42.5% is the median of household-level ratios, not the median debt divided by the median income. A household holding the median debt (€34,700) on the median income (€68,500) lands at 51%, because the two medians belong to different households and their quotient is not the published median.
At 51% of gross income you are above the 42.5% median for indebted households in Ireland, but below the 249.6% that marks the top decile, which at your income would be €170,976 of debt.
Euro-area median
66.0%
Across the euro area, indebted households owe 66.0% of gross income. The figure for Ireland is 42.5%: the same survey, the same definition, a different borrowing culture.
The stretched tenth
249.6%
Nine in ten indebted households in Ireland owe less than this multiple of their income. The euro-area figure at the same percentile is 374.5%.
Debt against assets
20.3%
Income is only half the picture: the median indebted household in Ireland owes this share of what it owns, and carries a loan-to-value of 36.3% on its home.
Read-out three
What carrying it costs.
Debt service is what leaves the account every month. The typical indebted household in Ireland pays €814 a month, which is 10.9% of gross income among those actually making payments; averaged over every indebted household, including those with nothing due, the ratio is 9.5%. The euro-area median is 12.5%.
We pay € a month towards it.
Leave that blank and the cards below describe other households: the typical indebted household in Ireland pays €814 a month, against €507 across the euro area. Fill it in and the page scores your own payment instead.
Median payment burden
10.9%
€814/month, published
Half of the households in Ireland making payments spend less of their income than this on debt.
Mortgage holders
11.1%
€922/month, published
The median share of gross income going to mortgage payments in Ireland.
Most stretched tenth
26.8%
No published payment figure
One in ten households in Ireland with payments spends more than this on debt service.
Payment amounts are the survey's own published medians (Table E7), not a ratio applied to your income. Your figure depends on your rate and remaining term.
Debt over a lifetime
The same country, six different answers.
Debt is not a level, it is a stage. In Ireland the load peaks at 97.7% of gross income for households aged 35 to 44 and falls to 7.4% for the oldest. Pick a band to compare against it rather than against the all-ages median, which mixes both ends together.
65.1% carry debt · median €11K · 9.2% of income on payments · 12.9% owe more than they own
79.5% carry debt · median €104K · 12.2% of income on payments · 8.8% owe more than they own
78.5% carry debt · median €80K · 12.2% of income on payments · 4.2% owe more than they own
69.9% carry debt · median €28K · 10.3% of income on payments · 3.0% owe more than they own
50.0% carry debt · median €5K · 7.2% of income on payments · 1.3% owe more than they own
26.1% carry debt · median €2K · 10.9% of income on payments · 1.0% owe more than they own
Bars are the median debt-to-income ratio for each band; the amber line is where you sit. Click a band to compare against it.
The same debt, elsewhere
Would this be normal in another country?
Your 51% of gross income, scored against every country in this comparison. The definitions are identical everywhere, so the only thing changing across the rows is the borrowing culture.
Country
Median
You vs that median
Where you land
🇮🇪Irelandthis page
42.5%
1.2× the medianunder the 249.6% top decile
🇦🇹Austria
29.5%
1.7× the medianunder the 228.3% top decile
🇩🇪Germany
35.3%
1.4× the medianunder the 282.6% top decile
🇮🇹Italy
58.7%
0.9× the medianunder the 299.4% top decile
🇫🇮Finland
80.6%
0.6× the medianunder the 283.8% top decile
🇪🇸Spain
84.3%
0.6× the medianunder the 389.0% top decile
🇫🇷France
92.0%
0.6× the medianunder the 437.2% top decile
🇧🇪Belgium
100.8%
0.5× the medianunder the 347.9% top decile
🇵🇹Portugal
102.6%
0.5× the medianunder the 424.1% top decile
🇱🇺Luxembourg
125.8%
0.4× the medianunder the 655.9% top decile
🇳🇱the Netherlands
206.4%
0.2× the medianunder the 629.1% top decile
Medians are Table F1 and top deciles Table F2, both among indebted households and across all ages, so these rows do not move when you pick an age band above.
What the debt is made of
Mortgages, or everything else.
Property debt is 87.2% of all household debt in Ireland; the remaining 12.8% is credit lines, cards and other loans. The share of households holding each kind is a separate question from how much of the money it represents: a lot of households owe a little on cards, and a few owe a lot on a house.
Mortgage on the main home71.6%
Mortgage on other property15.5%
Credit lines and overdrafts0.5%
Credit-card debt0.9%
Other non-mortgage loans11.5%
Own-home mortgage
30.3% of households
Median outstanding among those who hold it: €120,000.
Other-property mortgage
6.0% of households
Median outstanding among those who hold it: €112,700.
Non-mortgage debt
55.0% of households
Median outstanding among those who hold it: €6,800.
Credit-card balances in Ireland come from registers and are the amount owed at month end, which may include payments that had not yet settled.
Three numbers worth the asterisk
What Ireland looks like from the outside.
Households with no debt at all
34.4%, the lowest of the 11 countries here
Only 34.4% of households in Ireland owe nothing at all. Carrying some debt is simply the normal state, and being indebted says almost nothing about a household on its own.
Underwater households
5.5%
Share of households in Ireland whose debts exceed everything they own. The euro-area figure is 3.6%.
Typical debt, when there is debt
€34,700
Median outstanding among households in Ireland that hold any debt. Across the euro area the same figure is €31,800.
Liquid buffer
9.6%
Median net liquid assets as a share of gross income in Ireland: how long the household could cover itself without borrowing. The euro-area median is 28.1%. The survey publishes no ninetieth-percentile figure for this ratio in any country.
A free account turns this one-off check into a live dashboard: all your accounts in one place, with net worth, savings rate and progress toward your goals updated automatically as your money moves.
34.4% of households in Ireland owe nothing to any lender, the lowest of the 11 countries covered here. Only 65.6% carry debt of any kind, against 41.5% across the euro area. That makes debt the exception rather than the baseline here, and it is why the distribution on this page describes a minority of the country rather than the typical household.
Among households that hold debt, the median outstanding balance in Ireland is €34,700 and the average is €91,600. The gap between the two is the point: a small number of very large mortgages pull the average well above the middle. The lightest tenth of indebted households owe under €900; the heaviest tenth owe more than €248,200. Note that these figures cover only the 65.6% of households that actually hold debt; the survey publishes no distribution for the rest.
The median indebted household in Ireland owes 42.5% of its gross annual income, and the most-leveraged tenth are at 249.6% or more. The euro-area median is 66.0%. Anything between those two points is ordinary for a household with debt; above 249.6% you are in the top decile of leverage for the country. One caution: 42.5% is the median of household-level ratios, not the median debt divided by the median income, and those two medians belong to different households.
The survey does not prescribe a limit, but it does show what households actually do. Among households in Ireland making payments, the median is 10.9% of gross income; mortgage holders specifically are at 11.1%; and the most stretched tenth spend 26.8%. Averaged over all indebted households, including those with nothing due, the figure is 9.5%. The euro-area median is 12.5%.
There is no official threshold in the survey, but three published markers together make the case. Debt above 249.6% of gross income puts a household in the most-leveraged tenth in Ireland; debt service above 26.8% of gross income does the same on the payment side; and 5.5% of households already owe more than everything they own. The liquid buffer matters as much as the ratios: median net liquid assets in Ireland are 9.6% of gross income.
30.3% of households in Ireland hold a mortgage on the home they live in, with a median outstanding balance of €120,000. A further 6.0% hold a mortgage on other property. The median loan-to-value on the main residence is 36.3%, and the median indebted household's total debt is 20.3% of everything it owns.
By amount owed, 87.2% of household debt in Ireland is secured on property and 12.8% is not; credit-card balances are 0.9% of the total and credit lines and overdrafts 0.5%. By number of households the picture flips: 55.0% hold non-mortgage debt with a median of just €6,800, while the 30.3% with a mortgage owe a median of €120,000. Many households owe a little; a few owe a lot. One caveat: credit-card balances in Ireland come from registers and are the amount owed at month end, which may include payments that had not yet settled.
5.5% of households in Ireland owe more than everything they own is worth, against 3.6% across the euro area. Negative net wealth is not the same as being unable to pay (a recent mortgage on a home that has not yet appreciated produces it too), but it is the point at which a forced sale would not clear the debt.
65.6% of households in Ireland carry debt against 41.5% across the euro area, and the median indebted household owes €34,700 against a euro-area median of €31,800. On the ratios that matter, Ireland is at 42.5% of gross income against 66.0% for the euro area, and spends 10.9% of income on debt service against 12.5%. All of it comes from the same survey, run to the same definitions in every country.
Every figure on this page comes from the European Central Bank's Household Finance and Consumption Survey, wave 2023, published in 2026. Participation shares are Table E1, median debt by type Table E2, the composition of debt Table E3, and the distribution among indebted households Table E4; the ratios are Tables F1 and F2, negative net wealth Table F3, and median gross household income Table I3. Where the survey published no figure (too few observations, or an item not collected), this page says so rather than showing a zero.