In national accounting, debts are added according to those who are indebted. Household debt is the debt held by households. "National" or Public bad news is the debt held by the various governmental institutions (federal government, states, cities ...). Specialty credit is the credit held by businesses. Financial debt is the IOU held by the financial sector (from sole financial institution to another).

Lendings to stable financial entities such as ample companies or Debt Relief governments are often termed "risk free" or "low risk" and made at a so-called "risk-free case rate". This is because the debt and case are highly unlikely to be defaulted. A good paradigm of such risk-free interest is a US Treasury security - it yields the minimum return derivable from in economics, but investors have the comfort of the (almost) questionless expectation that the US Treasury will not default on its debenture instruments.