Direct lending, in which funds and other nonbank lenders make loans straight to companies, accounts for nearly $2 trillion in loans worldwide, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in its Global Financial Stability Report published on 13 October 2026. Other estimates of the private credit market from official bodies and the industry run from $1.5 trillion to just over $2 trillion, and differ mainly in how private credit is defined and what is counted.

Official estimates

The IMF’s October 2026 figure counts loans already made. It excludes dry powder, money committed to funds but not yet lent, and includes borrowing by the lending vehicles themselves, according to a footnote in the report. The IMF says the median direct-lending borrower’s debt has risen relative to its earnings from 2024 through 2026, especially in software and services. Among 10 large business development companies (BDCs), a type of US lending fund often listed or open to retail investors, with $300 billion in total assets, four holding about $90 billion have commitments to borrowers that exceed their available liquidity, the IMF says.

The Financial Stability Board (FSB), which coordinates the work of national financial authorities, put private credit at between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion at the end of 2024 in a report published on 6 May 2026. It uses a narrow definition: nonbank direct lending to medium-sized companies, negotiated bilaterally. By the FSB’s figures, that is similar in size to the institutional leveraged loan market, at about $1.5 trillion to $1.7 trillion, and the high-yield bond market, at about $2 trillion. The US is the largest market, at around $1 trillion, followed by the euro area and the United Kingdom. Member surveys show average annual growth of 16 percent in Canada and 17 percent in the UK over five years, 13 percent in the euro area over a decade, and a threefold increase in the US since 2019, the FSB says.

An earlier IMF estimate, in its April 2024 report, put private credit at about $2.1 trillion globally in 2023, counting both assets and capital committed but not yet deployed. Private credit funds alone held $1.7 trillion, the IMF said. It also found that private credit borrowers in North America were smaller than the typical leveraged loan or bond issuer and carried more debt relative to their earnings.

Industry estimates

  • McKinsey & Company: about $1.8 trillion for the funded private credit market in 2026, ten times its size in 2009, according to McKinsey data cited by the law firm Latham & Watkins.
  • Moody’s: private credit assets under management (AUM) are expected to pass $2 trillion in 2026 and approach $4 trillion by 2030, according to Moody’s 2026 Global Private Credit Outlook as reported by Trade Treasury Payments on 26 January 2026. The outlook also forecasts European private credit assets of $800 billion to $900 billion by 2028.
  • Wellington Management: citing PitchBook, the asset manager wrote on 21 July 2026 that direct lending made up 58.4 percent of private debt capital raised in 2024 and 31 percent in the first quarter of 2026, as fundraising spread to infrastructure debt, real estate credit and other strategies.

Why the numbers differ

The FSB says there is no common definition of private credit, and that the lack of one makes it harder to assess the market globally. It describes four overlapping approaches: a narrow one limited to direct lending; an ecosystem view that adds BDCs, private collateralized loan obligations and other vehicles; an origination view centred on loans arranged by asset managers, including privately placed investment-grade debt; and a legacy view that adds distressed, venture and mezzanine debt. A chart in the FSB report compares estimates from PitchBook, McKinsey, the Alternative Investment Management Association, Goldman Sachs, S&P Global, Apollo and Austria’s central bank, grouped from the narrowest definition, direct lending, to broader ones.

The measures also differ. The IMF’s 2026 figure counts loans outstanding, its 2024 figure adds undrawn commitments, and Moody’s figure is AUM, which can include uninvested capital.

Sources and notes

Read in full from the PDFs: Chapter 1 of the IMF’s October 2026 Global Financial Stability Report; Chapter 2, “The Rise and Risks of Private Credit”, of the April 2024 report; and the FSB’s Report on Vulnerabilities in Private Credit. The IMF website blocked direct downloads, so the IMF PDFs were retrieved through a web-fetch tool; the October 2026 release date is from the IMF launch page address and search results. Also read: Latham & Watkins on Legal 500, Trade Treasury Payments on Moody’s and Wellington. The McKinsey and Moody’s originals were not read. A Latham chapter in a Chambers guide, seen only in search summaries, gives about $2 trillion for the same McKinsey measure. A July 2026 Chatham House article on private credit regulation could not be opened. Thumbnail photo: “City of London skyline - geograph.org.uk - 5024077” by Jim Osley via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0; cropped. Office towers of the City of London, including the Leadenhall Building and 20 Fenchurch Street, seen across the River Thames. Stand-in photo; it does not show the events or organisations described.

Image: Lens chart built from the figures above. Thumbnail: Jim Osley via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0).