The net international investment position (NIIP) is the difference in the external financial assets and liabilities of a country.^[1] External debt of a country includes government debt and private debt. External assets publicly and privately held by a country's legal residents are also taken into account when calculating NIIP.^[2] Commodities and currencies tend to follow a cyclical pattern of significant valuation changes, which is also reflected in NIIP.

The International investment position (IIP) of a country is a financial statement of the value and composition of its external financial assets and liabilities. A positive NIIP value indicates that a nation is a creditor nation, while a negative value indicates that it is a debtor nation.

The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. (August 2023)

In 1980, the United States net international-creditor position was bigger than the total net creditor-positions of all the other countries in the world.^[3] Only six years later, in 1986, when the nation’s international investment position was at a year-end negative $107.4 billion, the U.S. became a net-debtor nation for the first time since 1914, when its nominal debt had reached $2 billion.^[4] By 1990, the U.S. was the world's largest debtor^[3] By end-2020, the country’s net international-investment position was a negative $14 trillion, an amount representing how much more the U.S. owed to the rest of the world than the rest of the world owed to the U.S.^[5] At the end of 2022, it stood at a negative -$16 trillion.^[6]

• Net foreign assets
• List of countries by external debt
• List of countries by public debt
• List of countries by net international investment position per capita