The City’s debt
$944M in 2015 · $1.07B in 2025
Click a year to see its amount.
How the debt stands, end of 2020
The two lines the City prints under its externally held debt: what its sinking fund already covers, and what remains net of it.
Debenture debt outstanding is $1.06B; the City’s own funds hold $1.8M of it, which the City leaves out of its externally held debt.
What it has set aside, end of 2020
$1.34B in reserves, in the 5 groups the City reports them in.
Click a line to open its page.
What the debt costs in 2020
Debt chargesof $1.64B of expenses in 2020, by kind of cost$41.5M$38.6M in 2018 · $34.7M in 2025
Click a year to see its amount.
Debt charges: the line of that name in the City’s expenses by kind of cost, as its review prints it.
Understand
What counts as debt here?
The number is the City’s debenture debt held by outside lenders, the “externally held debt” of its five-year review. At the end of 2020 its debenture debt outstanding was $1.06B; the $1.8M held by the City’s own funds is left out, as the City leaves it out.
The balance sheet also lists mortgages and loan agreements, $16.2M at the end of 2020, which the review does not count as debt.
This page reads the debt as the five-year review prints it, one debenture total a year: each borrowing’s lender, rate and maturity are not read here.
What is the sinking fund?
The review deducts from the debt the City’s sinking fund reserves — money it accumulates to repay its debentures when they fall due, $459M at the end of 2020 — and prints the result as net debt: $596M, or $855 per resident.
Are the reserves there to repay the debt?
Reserves are money set aside for a purpose: $1.34B at the end of 2020, in these groups: Future Capital, Financial Stabilization, Special Revenue and Programs, Asset Management, Future Debt Repayment. Only the Future Debt Repayment group is named for debt: $19.9M.
And the loans it guarantees?
They are not on this page. Its figures come from the five-year review and the payment schedules of the City’s Statement of Financial Information, which do not list the loans the City guarantees for others.
And what does it own?
At the end of 2020 the City carried $7.42B of tangible capital assets and $523M of net financial assets; its accumulated surplus was $7.96B. What it holds, line by line:
Where do these numbers come from?
The debt table, the reserves and the balance sheet of the five-year statistical review in the City’s Statement of Financial Information, which the City marks unaudited; each year from the newest report that prints it. Debt charges: the City’s expenses by kind of cost, same review.
2020: Statement of Financial Information 2024, p. 61 ↗ · CSV 2020 ↗ · debt.json ↗ · Sources and method →
Reports read: 2019 · 2020 · 2021 · 2022 · 2023 · 2024 · 2025
Source: City of Vancouver, Statements of Financial Information 2019–2025, five-year statistical review (unaudited).