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Total liabilities

Everything the company owes: loans, bonds, leases, supplier balances, taxes and provisions.

Formula

\text{Assets} - \text{Equity}

Taken as the total of the liabilities section of the balance sheet — wider than interest-bearing debt, and including items that carry no interest.

How to read the number

Liabilities and equity together finance the assets: they are two sides of one identity, and their balance says whose money is working in the business.

When the metric lies

Confusing liabilities with debt is a common error: trade payables and customer advances are liabilities but not debt, and no interest accrues on them. Leverage computed on total liabilities is overstated.

Where it is used

The metric is calculated across every security in the catalogue and appears on the instrument card, in the multiples table and in the screener.

Also known as: total liabilities

Related terms