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YouCalc Study · Finance & Money · Last reviewed 2026-07-20

Deposit Insurance Coverage Index: what a bank guarantee is really worth

If your bank fails, the law guarantees your deposits only up to a ceiling. Across 68 jurisdictions that ceiling runs from about $441 (Ghana) to $250,000 (United States) — a 567× gap. But the sharper finding is what happens when the ceiling is identical: 19 of these jurisdictions are fixed at exactly €100,000, not because 19 governments independently chose the same number but because Article 6(1) of EU Directive 2014/49 fixes it. Measured against income per person, that one legal constant protects 6.42× more years in Bulgaria than in Ireland. The variation everyone reports is in the currency. The variation that matters is in the denominator.

Key findings

If your bank fails, how much is guaranteed? We compare statutory deposit insurance ceilings across 68 jurisdictions in one currency and against income.

How the numbers are computed. Each statutory ceiling is converted to US dollars at the World Bank official exchange rate (LCU per US$, period average) for 2024, then divided by GDP per capita for the same year to give the years of average income it protects. Ceilings set in euro by law convert once from the euro rate and are never back-converted from a national currency. The ceilings themselves are current as of 2026-07; only the conversion spine is 2024, because that is the latest complete calendar year published.

One law, one number, 6.42× the value

These 19 jurisdictions all guarantee exactly €100,000 per depositor per bank. That is not a national policy choice — Directive 2014/49/EU Article 6(1) sets it, and every EU and EEA member transposes the same figure. In dollars they are therefore indistinguishable, all at $108,238. Set against income per person, they are not remotely alike.

One law, one number, 6.42× the value
Jurisdiction Ceiling (USD) GDP per capita Years protected
Bulgaria $108,238 $17,597 6.15×
Romania $108,238 $20,080 5.39×
Hungary $108,238 $23,305 4.64×
Croatia $108,238 $24,050 4.50×
Greece $108,238 $24,626 4.40×
Poland $108,238 $25,104 4.31×
Portugal $108,238 $29,328 3.69×
Czechia $108,238 $31,828 3.40×
Spain $108,238 $35,327 3.06×
Italy $108,238 $40,430 2.68×
France $108,238 $46,103 2.35×
Finland $108,238 $53,156 2.04×
Germany $108,238 $56,104 1.93×
Belgium $108,238 $56,582 1.91×
Austria $108,238 $58,269 1.86×
Netherlands $108,238 $67,465 1.60×
Denmark $108,238 $71,026 1.52×
Iceland $108,238 $85,863 1.26×
Ireland $108,238 $112,895 0.96×

19 jurisdictions at an identical €100,000 statutory ceiling, ranked by the years of GDP per capita it covers. Converted once from the euro at the World Bank 2024 average rate.

Bar chart of the 19 jurisdictions whose deposit guarantee is fixed at 100,000 euro by EU Directive 2014/49/EU, ranked by how many years of GDP per capita that protects: Bulgaria highest at 6.15 times, Ireland lowest at 0.96 times.
The ceiling is fixed by one article of EU law; what differs is everything underneath it. Chart built at build time from the study engine — the card and the page can never disagree.

This is why a “deposit protection by country” table denominated only in euro or dollars misleads for a third of Europe: it reports a legal constant as though it were a finding. The variation is real, but it lives in the denominator.

The full index

68 jurisdictions, one currency, one method. Every row is a statutory ceiling per depositor per institution, for a single ownership category and ordinary balances, and every row links the primary instrument it comes from.

The full index
# Jurisdiction Ceiling Currency Ceiling (USD) Years protected Rank by years Note Source
1 United States 250,000 USD $250,000 2.90× 26 ownership-category multiplier fdic.gov
2 Norway 2,000,000 NOK $186,119 2.07× 39 Norway-booked deposits only bankenessikringsfond.no
3 Australia 250,000 AUD $164,978 2.55× 31 FX deposits excluded; not pre-funded apra.gov.au
4 United Kingdom 120,000 GBP $153,371 2.88× 27 raised 2025-12-01 fscs.org.uk
5 Indonesia 2,000,000,000 IDR $126,140 25.61× 1 3T rate condition voids cover lps.go.id
6 Switzerland 100,000 CHF $113,579 1.05× 60 system capped CHF 7.9bn esisuisse.ch
7 Liechtenstein 100,000 CHF $113,579 0.52× 66 hard CHF figure, not a EUR equivalent gesetze.li
8 Sweden 1,150,000 SEK $108,823 1.90× 46 EUR100k equivalent, reset 5-yearly riksgalden.se
9 Germany 100,000 EUR $108,238 1.93× 44 3 sector schemes edb-banken.de
10 France 100,000 EUR $108,238 2.35× 36 +EUR100k separate State passbook guarantee garantiedesdepots.fr
11 Italy 100,000 EUR $108,238 2.68× 29 per bank even within a group fitd.it
12 Spain 100,000 EUR $108,238 3.06× 25 fgd.es
13 Netherlands 100,000 EUR $108,238 1.60× 51 aggregates across brand names dnb.nl
14 Ireland 100,000 EUR $108,238 0.96× 62 credit unions in scope depositguarantee.ie
15 Portugal 100,000 EUR $108,238 3.69× 20 THB uncapped 12 months fgd.pt
16 Greece 100,000 EUR $108,238 4.40× 11 net set-off teke.gr
17 Belgium 100,000 EUR $108,238 1.91× 45 3 parallel ceilings garantiefonds.belgium.be
18 Austria 100,000 EUR $108,238 1.86× 48 3 sector schemes (corrected) einlagensicherung.at
19 Finland 100,000 EUR $108,238 2.04× 41 amalgamation = one bank rvv.fi
20 Denmark 100,000 EUR $108,238 1.52× 53 EUR-denominated, not DKK fs.dk
21 Poland 100,000 EUR $108,238 4.31× 13 paid in PLN at failure date bfg.pl
22 Czechia 100,000 EUR $108,238 3.40× 22 paid in CZK at decisive day garancnisystem.cz
23 Hungary 100,000 EUR $108,238 4.64× 7 paid in HUF oba.hu
24 Romania medium 100,000 EUR $108,238 5.39× 5 sourcing medium eur-lex.europa.eu
25 Bulgaria 100,000 EUR $108,238 6.15× 4 euro adopted 2026-01-01 dif.bg
26 Croatia 100,000 EUR $108,238 4.50× 9 net set-off haod.hr
27 Iceland 100,000 EUR $108,238 1.26× 57 EUR-denominated, ISK floats althingi.is
28 San Marino 100,000 EUR $108,238 n/a — mirrors DGSD level but outside the EU bcsm.sm
29 Hong Kong SAR 800,000 HKD $102,514 1.89× 47 raised 2024-10-01 dps.org.hk
30 Taiwan 3,000,000 TWD $93,425 2.73× 28 FX + income from IMF fallback cdic.gov.tw
31 Singapore 100,000 SGD $74,837 0.79× 65 +S$100k separate CPF bucket sdic.org.sg
32 South Korea 100,000,000 KRW $73,347 2.02× 42 doubled 2025-09-01 kdic.or.kr
33 Canada 100,000 CAD $73,027 1.33× 56 9 coverage categories cdic.ca
34 Jordan 50,000 JOD $70,423 13.88× 2 JOD only, FX excluded dic.gov.jo
35 China 500,000 CNY $69,469 5.23× 6 cap rarely binds in practice pbc.gov.cn
36 Japan 10,000,000 JPY $66,065 1.95× 43 settlement deposits UNLIMITED fsa.go.jp
37 New Zealand 100,000 NZD $60,521 1.22× 58 scheme live only since 2025-07-01 rbnz.govt.nz
38 Azerbaijan 100,000 AZN $58,824 8.06× 3 rate-conditioned eligibility adif.gov.az
39 Argentina 50,000,000 ARS $54,663 3.91× 17 doubled 2026-04-01; high-yield excluded bcra.gob.ar
40 Malaysia 250,000 MYR $54,628 4.60× 8 separate Islamic/conventional buckets pidm.gov.my
41 Serbia 50,000 EUR $54,119 3.96× 16 NOT EU - half the DGSD level aod.rs
42 Montenegro 50,000 EUR $54,119 4.08× 15 EUR 100,000 suspended until EU accession fzdcg.org
43 Saudi Arabia 200,000 SAR $53,333 1.50× 55 rulebook.sama.gov.sa
44 Bahrain medium 20,000 BHD $53,191 1.79× 49 covers URIA; date corrected to 2011-01-13 cbb.gov.bh
45 Brazil 250,000 BRL $46,391 4.50× 10 rolling R$1m / 4yr global cap fgc.org.br
46 Bosnia and Herzegovina 70,000 BAM $38,726 4.12× 14 BAM-denominated, not a euro limit aod.ba
47 Turkey 1,200,000 TRY $36,579 2.30× 38 re-indexed every January tmsf.org.tr
48 Peru 122,000 PEN $32,512 3.81× 19 RE-SET EVERY QUARTER fsd.org.pe
49 North Macedonia 30,000 EUR $32,471 3.49× 21 natural persons ONLY; paid in denars fodsk.org.mk
50 Thailand 1,000,000 THB $28,334 3.84× 18 THB-only, FX excluded dpa.or.th
51 Albania 2,500,000 ALL $26,846 2.36× 35 SCA sub-tier ALL 2,000,000 asd.gov.al
52 Kazakhstan 10,000,000 KZT $21,324 1.51× 54 ordinary tier; term-locked savings 20m kdif.kz
53 Georgia 50,000 GEL $18,378 2.05× 40 raised 2026-04-01 from GEL 30,000 diagency.ge
54 Philippines 1,000,000 PHP $17,455 4.38× 12 doubled 2025-03-15 by Board issuance pia.gov.ph
55 Russia 1,400,000 RUB $15,127 1.01× 61 3 simultaneous ceilings consultant.ru
56 Vietnam 350,000,000 VND $14,484 3.07× 24 changed 2026-07-13; VND+individuals only div.gov.vn
57 Colombia 50,000,000 COP $12,272 1.54× 52 frozen since 2017 fogafin.gov.co
58 India 500,000 INR $5,976 2.31× 37 per right and capacity dicgc.org.in
59 South Africa 100,000 ZAR $5,456 0.87× 63 scheme live only since 2024-04-01 resbank.co.za
60 Nepal medium 500,000 NPR $3,739 2.56× 30 natural persons ONLY dcgf.gov.np
61 Kenya 500,000 KES $3,709 1.74× 50 draft notice would double it kdic.go.ke
62 Sri Lanka 1,100,000 LKR $3,641 0.80× 64 FX from CBSL fallback cbsl.gov.lk
63 Pakistan 1,000,000 PKR $3,590 2.43× 33 doubled 2024-10-01 dpc.org.pk
64 Nigeria 5,000,000 NGN $3,381 3.12× 23 DMB tier; MFB 2m ndic.gov.ng
65 Zimbabwe medium 3,000 USD $3,000 1.20× 59 DTMFI tier USD 2,000; no gazetted date - verify with DPC dpcorp.co.zw
66 Tanzania 7,500,000 TZS $2,887 2.42× 34 bot.go.tz
67 Uganda 10,000,000 UGX $2,662 2.47× 32 joint account gets its own limit dpf.or.ug
68 Ghana 6,250 GHS $441 0.18× 67 SDIs only GHS 1,250 gdpc.gov.gh

Ranked by statutory ceiling in US dollars. Rows shaded blue are fixed at €100,000 by EU Directive 2014/49/EU rather than set nationally. Rows marked “medium” or “low” rest on a single source or an unresolved detail and are flagged rather than quietly shipped. Where the World Bank spine had no exchange rate, the row names the fallback source it used instead.

Logarithmic bar chart ranking 68 jurisdictions by statutory deposit insurance ceiling in US dollars, from United States at $250,000 down to Ghana at $441, with the 19 EU-fixed jurisdictions forming an identical block.
Logarithmic axis — each gridline is ten times the last, which is the only way a 567× span fits one chart. The solid blue block is the €100,000 statutory constant.

Protecting the most dollars is not protecting the most life

Rank the same 68 jurisdictions by dollars and then by years of income, and the two orders disagree sharply. The disagreement is the point: a guarantee is only meaningful relative to what a life costs where you live.

At $250,000, United States has the largest guarantee in this index in cash terms and ranks #26 of 67 once set against income per person. The clearest reversal runs the other way: Philippines ranks only #54 in dollars but #12 against income, at 4.38×. At the other end, 6 jurisdictions protect less than a single year of average income: Ghana, Liechtenstein, Singapore, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Ireland. Liechtenstein is the counter-intuitive one: a CHF 100,000 ceiling is generous in absolute terms, but it has the highest GDP per capita in the index, so it buys barely half a year.

Log-log scatter of statutory ceiling in US dollars against years of income protected across 68 jurisdictions. The United States sits far right but mid-height, Indonesia and Jordan sit high, Ghana sits bottom-left, and Ireland, Singapore, Liechtenstein and Switzerland fall below the one-year line.
Both axes logarithmic. Top-left is a modest sum that goes a long way locally; bottom-right is a large sum that does not.
Work out how much cash you should hold — Emergency Fund Calculator

Does this table hold up?

The dataset was rebuilt independently from primary sources — each jurisdiction from its own deposit insurer or statute — and then checked against the benchmark the field already publishes. IADI reports coverage as a multiple of GDP per capita across 53 jurisdictions circa 2020.

Does this table hold up?
Metric This index (68 jurisdictions, 2024) IADI published (53 jurisdictions, 2020)
Median coverage / GDP per capita 2.42× 2.30×
Mean 3.20× 3.6×
Range 0.18×–25.61× 0.4×–over 20x

Our median lands +5.2% from IADI’s, built from different sources on a different vintage. That is the check that matters: this table is not asking to be trusted, it reproduces the accepted benchmark and then extends it by 14 jurisdictions and 4 years.

What this table is not

Ten ways a cross-country coverage comparison goes wrong. Each one applies to rows above, and each is a reason to read the ceiling as a starting point rather than an answer.

Ownership categories mean the headline is not the maximum

This table compares statutory single-category ceilings. Several schemes multiply: the US has seven ownership categories, so a trust owner with five or more beneficiaries can reach $1,250,000 at one bank. Canada has nine, Malaysia runs separate Islamic and conventional buckets, and Nigeria and India cover per “right and capacity”.

Six ceilings are set in euro but paid in another currency

All nineteen EU and EEA rows carry the same €100,000, but in Denmark, Poland, Czechia, Hungary, Romania and Iceland the euro is not the national currency: the ceiling is denominated in euro and paid locally at the failure-date rate. Back-converting a published zloty or koruna figure at this year’s rate would inject variance that does not exist in the statute, so every euro-fixed row here converts once, from the euro. Sweden is the near-miss — it sets its own krona ceiling designed to track €100,000, which is why it sits just outside the identical block rather than inside it.

Four jurisdictions use an indexed unit of account, not a currency

Mexico (UDI), Chile (UF), Bolivia (UFV) and Uruguay (UI) denominate coverage in units that are repriced continuously, so they have no fixed currency value and are shown in a separate panel rather than ranked. Chile compounds it: the cap is per calendar year rather than per failure, and covers natural persons only.

Sub-limits by institution class

A single national headline can hide a lower tier. Nigeria protects ₦5m at banks but ₦2m at microfinance institutions; Ghana GHS 6,250 but GHS 1,250 at specialised deposit-takers; Albania ALL 2.5m at banks but ALL 2m at savings-credit associations; Zimbabwe US$3,000 at banks but US$2,000 at microfinance. Quoting only the top tier overstates what an ordinary account holder is protected for.

Foreign-currency deposits split the world in two

Excluded outright in Japan, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Jordan and Australia. Covered but paid in local currency at the failure-date rate in Pakistan, Uganda, South Africa, Ghana, Ukraine, Czechia, Romania and Hungary — so the depositor carries the conversion risk. Ring-fenced separately in Uruguay.

Coverage can be void on behaviour or interest rate

Indonesia’s “3T” rules remove cover entirely if the deposit rate exceeds the LPS guarantee rate. Azerbaijan caps eligibility at 12% on manat and 2.5% on foreign currency. Argentina excludes deposits paying above the central bank reference. Most schemes have no analogue, so a chased yield can silently cost the guarantee.

Net set-off against what you owe the bank

Greece pays €77,000 on an €80,000 deposit held against a €3,000 debt to the same bank. Croatia, Nigeria, Ghana, Albania, Bosnia, Montenegro and North Macedonia apply the same netting. It is invisible in any headline table, including this one.

“One country, one scheme” is false

Germany has three or more statutory schemes, Austria three, Italy two, and Korea spans KDIC plus separate federation funds. The figure is the same across them; the body that pays it is not.

Temporary high balances are not harmonised

Portugal protects house-sale proceeds without cap for 12 months; Germany, Austria and the Netherlands add €500,000 on top of the base, so roughly €600,000 in total — routinely misreported as €500,000. Montenegro adds €30,000. Directive (EU) 2026/804 harmonises this at €500,000 for six months, but transposition runs to 11 May 2028, so this table reports current law.

Statute and practice can disagree

The Philippines statute (RA 3591) still reads ₱500,000; the operative ₱1,000,000 comes from a Board issuance under delegated authority. Montenegro’s Article 7(4) reads €100,000, but a transitional article suspends it at €50,000 until EU accession. Reading only the headline article publishes the wrong number in both cases.

The headline is a floor, not a ceiling, for a real household. Everything here is the statutory single-category ceiling: per depositor, per institution, ordinary balances. What any given person can actually recover depends on how their accounts are titled, what currency they are in, and what they owe the same bank.

Not ranked, and why

Verified jurisdictions that cannot honestly enter a dollar ranking, and the ones left out altogether.

Indexed units of account — no fixed currency value

Four schemes denominate coverage in a unit that is repriced continuously, so any dollar figure would report the quote date rather than a policy. Values below are pinned to 2024-12-31 to match the conversion spine.

Indexed units of account — no fixed currency value
Jurisdiction Unit Statutory coverage Unit value Local-currency equivalent
Mexico UDI 400,000 UDI 8.34091 MXN 3,336,364 MXN
Chile UF UF 200 per bank, UF 400 system-wide, per calendar year 38,416.69 CLP 7,683,338 CLP
Bolivia UFV 40,000 UFV 2.57833 BOB 103,133 BOB
Uruguay UI UI 250,000 plus a separate USD 10,000 for foreign currency 6.169 UYU 1,542,250 UYU

These drift fast, which is exactly why they are not ranked: Bolivia’s UFV has risen about 28% and Mexico’s UDI about 5% since the pinned date. Chile compounds it further — its cap is per calendar year rather than per failure, and covers natural persons only, where Uruguay explicitly covers legal persons too.

Blanket guarantees — no ceiling to rank

No scheme at all

Excluded rather than shipped shaky

Six jurisdictions were researched and then deliberately left out. Publishing a plausible-looking wrong number would be worse than an honest gap.

Method

Currency

Statutory ceilings converted at the World Bank official exchange rate, LCU per US$, period average, for calendar year 2024. For EU and EEA members the ceiling is €100,000 by law and is converted once, from the euro — national-currency figures are never back-converted, because those schemes convert at the failure date rather than at a fixed rate. Where the spine has no rate, the row names its fallback: Sri Lanka from the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, and Taiwan from the IMF, since Taiwan is absent from World Bank data entirely.

Income

Coverage as a multiple of GDP per capita — the metric IADI, the FSB and the IMF use for exactly this comparison. GDP per capita is output per person, including capital and government. It is not a wage, and it is not a median. A median-salary denominator would be the better yardstick, but ILOSTAT publishes a mean rather than a median and does not cover enough of these jurisdictions to use without silently dropping the low-coverage end of the table.

Scope

Statutory ceilings per depositor per institution, single ownership category, ordinary (non-temporary) balances. Of 74 jurisdictions researched, 68 are published here and six were excluded on source quality. One jurisdiction ranks in dollars but shows no income figure, because the spine publishes none for it; it is excluded from every income statistic rather than given a substituted value.

Freshness

Deposit ceilings move more than people assume: 22% of the rows here changed within 24 months. Peru re-sets quarterly, Turkey re-indexes every January, and the UK, Sweden, South Korea, Argentina and Georgia all moved recently. This index is reviewed quarterly and every row carries the date its figure was confirmed. Where no effective date is verifiable, the row shows none rather than a guess.

Frequently asked questions

Is my money safe if my bank fails?

Up to the ceiling for your jurisdiction, and only for eligible deposits. Above it you become an ordinary creditor of the failed bank and may recover little or nothing. The practical implication of this table is that the ceiling is per depositor per institution, so balances above it can often be protected simply by splitting them across separate banks.

Why do so many countries have exactly €100,000?

Because it is not a coincidence or a convergence. EU Directive 2014/49/EU Article 6(1) requires every member state to set the level at €100,000, so 19 jurisdictions in this index carry the identical figure by law. What differs between them is what that figure is worth locally, which is the whole point of the second column.

Does this table tell me the most I can be covered for at one bank?

No — it is deliberately the opposite. Every figure is the statutory ceiling for a single ownership category. Schemes that recognise multiple categories can cover one depositor for far more at the same institution: in the US, seven categories mean a trust owner with several beneficiaries can be insured well past a million dollars at one bank.

Why use GDP per capita rather than average salary?

Because a salary series deep enough to cover these jurisdictions does not exist. ILOSTAT publishes a mean rather than a median, and its country coverage would force us to drop exactly the low-coverage jurisdictions the comparison depends on. GDP per capita is the metric IADI and the IMF use for this comparison, but it is output per person rather than a wage, and it should be read as a yardstick rather than as anyone’s income.

How current is this?

The ceilings were confirmed in 2026-07 and the index is reviewed quarterly. The conversion rates and income figures are calendar 2024, the latest complete year the World Bank publishes — so the ceilings are current even though the spine carries an earlier date. Given that 22% of these limits changed within 24 months, always confirm your own jurisdiction with its deposit insurer before acting.

Sources

Each of the 68 rows above additionally links the primary instrument it comes from — the scheme’s own publication or the governing statute. No calculator site is cited anywhere in this study.

Cite this study

Download the data (CSV)

YouCalc (2024). Deposit Insurance Coverage Index: what your bank guarantee is worth. https://youcalc.com/en/studies/deposit-insurance-coverage-index/

Free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 — please credit YouCalc with a link.

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