South Africans enter festive season with record debt levels, DebtBusters Index shows

SOUTH Africans are heading into the festive season under the heaviest financial strain seen in nearly a decade, according to the DebtBusters Q3 2025 Debt Index, released on Tuesday.

- YOGASHEN PILLAY

The report shows that 95% of people who applied for debt counselling in the third quarter relied on a personal loan, while 22% used overdraft facilities regularly — the highest levels ever recorded.

Benay Sager, executive head of DebtBusters, said the results confirm a troubling deterioration in households' financial resilience. “Those who applied for debt counselling are now using an unsustainable 70% of their take-home pay to service debt - which is the highest level recorded in the last eight years,” he said.

Sager added that successive interest rate and petrol price reductions have helped consumers better deal with debt; however, finances are still seriously strained. “Over the past nine years, income growth has not kept up with significant cost increases, and consumers are using short-term unsecured credit and personal loans to make up the shortfall,” he said.