Roughly 5.8 million Argentines are now more than 90 days behind on debt payments, according to Central Bank data, with about half of that overdue debt already classified as uncollectible. The figure marks the highest household delinquency rate in 20 years and has become a talking point in Argentina's ongoing review process with the International Monetary Fund, even as the Fund itself says the trend does not yet threaten financial stability.
The deterioration has been fast. The household credit irregularity rate rose from 4.5% in May 2025 to roughly 12.9% by mid-2026, nearly tripling in a little over a year, with delinquency worsening at 23 of Argentina's 30 largest banks in July alone. The overall private-sector default rate, which includes businesses, stood at 7.73% as of the most recent reading, up from 7.63% the prior month, while business delinquency alone rose to 3.61%.
More than 70% of the overdue debt is concentrated in personal loans and credit cards, the kind of short-term, high-interest borrowing households increasingly lean on to cover everyday expenses rather than larger purchases. Some digital-wallet lenders have been charging annual rates approaching 1,000%, and informal lenders around 260%, according to a report from the Centro de Economía Política cited in regional coverage of the data. Around 21 million Argentines, roughly 46% of the population, carry some form of debt, meaning the delinquency wave touches a broad cross-section of borrowers, not a narrow subset.
For the households involved, falling behind by 90 days is not an abstract statistic. Once a borrower is reported to the Central Bank's public credit registry, which banks, phone companies, landlords and retailers routinely check before extending any new credit, it typically becomes far harder to get a loan, finance a purchase in installments, sign a rental lease or even open a basic bank account. That effectively locks a growing share of the population out of the same formal financial system the government has spent nearly two years trying to rebuild trust in, and it can be self-reinforcing: missing a credit card payment today makes it harder to borrow to cover next month's expenses, even if income eventually improves.
IMF communications director Julie Kozack addressed the trend directly, telling reporters that "we are monitoring the recent increase in household delinquency rates" but that "we don't consider this to represent a significant risk to financial stability in Argentina." The Fund's reasoning rests on three points: household debt remains low relative to the size of the economy, at about 8% of GDP and below most regional peers; Argentine banks are well capitalized and liquid; and loan-loss provisions already cover more than 85% of non-performing household debt, limiting the risk that rising defaults spill over into the banking system itself.
The credit boom behind the delinquency numbers has been, in part, a deliberate feature of the government's economic strategy. Milei's administration has pushed to expand access to consumer credit as part of its broader reactivation push, betting that easier borrowing would help offset years of contracting real incomes and stimulate consumption without requiring a return to the fiscal deficits the government has worked to eliminate.
That is also why economists have pointed to the delinquency data as one of the clearest signs that Argentina's disinflation, while real, has not yet been matched by a recovery in take-home pay. Real wages fell sharply during the harshest years of Milei's stabilization program, and even as monthly price increases slow, they slow from a much higher base: a household that borrowed to get through 2024 and 2025 is now trying to repay that debt out of a lower starting income, at real interest rates that remain high by historical standards. INDEC reported this same week that consumer prices rose just 1.7% in August, the slowest pace in 14 months, but a cooling headline inflation rate does not automatically mean easier household finances. The gap between disinflation at the macro level and rising defaults at the household level is likely to be a recurring theme as Argentina's economic recovery keeps being told through two very different sets of numbers.
The IMF's assessment will be tested more formally later this month, when its third review mission for Argentina's program arrives the week of September 21. Household delinquency is unlikely to be the headline issue in those talks, but it is now firmly on the Fund's radar, and a continued rise between now and then would sharpen questions about how much further the government can lean on consumer credit to keep growth going without a corresponding recovery in real wages.