The short version
In 2022 Ghana defaulted. It owed about US$13 billion on bonds sold to foreign investors in dollars, and it could not pay. After nearly two years of negotiation, in October 2024 the old bonds were cancelled and holders were handed new ones instead. Everything on this page is one of those new bonds.
Three things about them are unusual, and all three matter for reading the price.
They shrink. An ordinary government bond pays interest for years and then repays the whole loan on one day at the end. Ghana's new bonds repay the loan in instalments, spread over years. Some are already part-repaid: the note we label PDI below has handed back 41.65% of what it started as. That changes what a quoted number means: for a bond like this one, a quote is per 100 of what is left, not per 100 of what was originally lent.
The interest rate changes. Two of them start at 5% and step up to 6% on 1 July 2028. That was the compromise: a low coupon early, while Ghana was still fragile, in exchange for more later.
One of them pays no interest at all. The PDI note exists to settle interest Ghana had already missed. Rather than pay that arrears bill in cash, Ghana issued a bond for it. It carries no coupon and simply repays itself in twelve instalments.
The four live bonds
All in US dollars. All issued 9 October 2024. Interest and instalment dates are 3 January and 3 July. Where there is interest, it is paid twice a year on a 30E/360 basis.
PDI note — zero coupon, due 3 January 2030
"PDI" is Past Due Interest — the interest Ghana had already failed to pay when it defaulted. Instead of paying it, Ghana turned it into this bond. It pays no interest of its own. It just repays itself, a twelfth at a time, twice a year, until January 2030.
- Coupon
- None — zero coupon confirmed
- Final maturity
- 3 January 2030 confirmed
- Originally issued
- US$734,971,927 confirmed
- Repayment
- 12 instalments — the first 11 of 8.33% each, the last of 8.37% confirmed
- Still outstanding
- 58.35% of the original amount, about US$428.9 million
DISCO short — 5% stepping to 6%, due 3 July 2029
"DISCO" is short for discount bond — holders of the old debt accepted a cut to the amount owed in exchange for a bond that Ghana could realistically service. This is the shorter of the two.
- Coupon
- 5.0%, rising to 6.0% on 1 July 2028 confirmed
- Final maturity
- 3 July 2029 confirmed
- Originally issued
- US$2,876,012,617 confirmed
- Repayment
- 8 equal instalments of 12.5%, from 3 January 2026 confirmed
- Still outstanding
- 75% of the original amount
DISCO long — 5% stepping to 6%, due 3 July 2035
The largest of the four, and the one that carries Ghana's obligation furthest into the future. Nothing has been repaid yet — the instalments do not begin until January 2030.
- Coupon
- 5.0%, rising to 6.0% on 1 July 2028 confirmed
- Final maturity
- 3 July 2035 confirmed
- Originally issued
- US$4,135,753,703 confirmed
- Repayment
- 12 instalments, twice a year from 3 January 2030 confirmedTen of about 7.8%, then two of about 11.0%. Ghana's own debt report gives those figures as approximate, so we carry them as approximate stated as approximate
- Still outstanding
- 100% — repayment has not started
PAR bond — 1.5%, due 3 January 2037
"PAR" means no reduction in the amount owed — the trade-off was a very low interest rate for a very long time instead. A 1.5% coupon is worth far less than what the market currently wants for lending to Ghana, and a bond's price is what closes that gap, which is why this one trades a long way below the others.
- Coupon
- 1.5%, flat for the life of the bond confirmed
- Final maturity
- 3 January 2037 confirmed
- Originally issued
- US$1,132,520,907 confirmed
- Repayment
- 3 instalments — 3 January 2036, 3 July 2036, 3 January 2037 confirmedSplit assumed equal — see below inferred
- Still outstanding
- 100% — repayment has not started
Also worth knowing: one bond has already gone
A fifth new bond, the Down Payment note (XS2893146873), was repaid in five instalments and matured on 3 July 2026. It no longer trades, so it does not appear on the price page.
How we know 58.35% of the PDI note is left
We work that figure out ourselves, from the repayment schedule and the calendar, and then check it against the outside world. Ghana's own Ministry of Finance said in May 2025 that 16.66% had been repaid — exactly two instalments of 8.33%. A commercial bond database, cbonds, publishes US$428,856,121 outstanding on US$734,971,930 issued, which is 0.58350 to five decimal places. Neither of those feeds anything on this site; they are marks against our homework.
A mistake we made, and fixed
Until July 2026 our own system treated the PDI note as if it repaid in one go at the end. Because the note is in fact more than 40% repaid already, that error made it look materially cheaper than it was — by roughly eight points. We found it, fixed it, and it is the reason the repayment schedules on this page exist as a checked, documented thing rather than an assumption. Get a schedule wrong and the published price is wrong.
What we are not sure about
Three open questions, stated plainly rather than papered over.
How the PAR bond's three instalments split
Ghana's announcement gives the three repayment dates but never says the three amounts are equal. We currently assume a third each. An illustrative cashflow published during the negotiations points to an uneven split instead, so this is genuinely unresolved. It affects the timing of the money, not the total, and the first of the three payments is still a decade away, so it moves the price by well under a point — but it is an assumption, and it is labelled as one.
The Saderea top-up
In July 2026 Ghana exchanged US$117.8 million of separate Saderea bonds into the 2035 and 2037 lines. The amounts added to each were not published, so the true outstanding on those two is probably a little higher than the issue figures above.
The PDI amount, to the dollar
Three official sources give three slightly different original amounts for the PDI note — US$734,971,918, US$734,971,927 and US$734,971,930. The spread is about twelve dollars on three-quarters of a billion. It changes nothing about the schedule; we mention it because we would rather show you the seam than hide it.
Where every figure here comes from
No data vendor supplies the terms on this page. Each one below is a public document, and where we can link straight to it, we do.
| What it tells us | Source |
|---|---|
| The repayment dates and instalment counts for every new bond, word for word — and the percentages for the PDI note and the short DISCO | Republic of Ghana, "Statement re Company Event", 5 September 2024, Table D |
| The long DISCO's split — the ten instalments of about 7.8% and the last two of about 11.0% | Ghana Ministry of Finance, Annual Public Debt Report FY2024, footnote to Figure 3.2 (stated there as approximate) |
| The final amounts issued. The ministry's own results announcement and this notice differ by a few dollars on the PDI note — see above | Republic of Ghana, "Statement re Final Principal Amounts of New Notes", 8 October 2024 |
| The issue date, 9 October 2024 | Republic of Ghana, "Statement re Settlement" |
| ISINs, the 144A codes, and the amounts exchanged | Ghana Ministry of Finance, Announcement of Eurobond Consent Solicitation Results |
| Confirmation that 16.66% of the PDI note had been repaid by May 2025 | Ghana Ministry of Finance, Cleansing Statement on the Saderea Notes, 29 May 2025 |
| Amounts still outstanding, used as a cross-check | Ghana Ministry of Finance, Annual Public Debt Report FY2025 |
How we work out the price
Nothing on this page is a price. Terms change rarely — a coupon, a maturity date and a repayment schedule are fixed when the bond is sold — so a reference page can state them once and stand. Prices change all day, so they live on the price page and only there. If a figure here ever disagrees with one there, this page is the one to distrust, and we would like to hear about it.
What the two have to do with each other is this. On a normal trading day a closing quote for these bonds reaches us from the market, and that anchors what the price page shows. Between closes the price moves with the things that move this market: US Treasury yields, how much extra return investors demand for African sovereign risk, market volatility and, for commodity exporters, commodity prices. Where a bond repays in instalments rather than in one go, the calculation also has to know how much of it is left on any given day — which is what the repayment schedules above are for. Get a schedule wrong and the published price is wrong.
Information only. This page is general educational material about how this market works. Nothing here is investment, financial, legal or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Prices shown elsewhere on this site are indicative and are not an offer to trade.
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