Country Deficit Days 2026

When does a country’s consumption exceed the country’s biocapacity budget?

Given global overshoot, what might be even more relevant than Country Overshoot Days are Country Deficit Days. A country’s Deficit Day is the day by which its residents have used as much from nature as the country’s ecosystems regenerate in the entire year. In short: the country’s own Footprint starts to exceed its own biocapacity. Here’s the backstory.

How much nature do we have?

The calculation is simple: the globe has a circumference of 40,000 kilometers. Using simple school geometry, even high-schoolers can calculate that the Earth’s surface area is 51 billion hectares. About a quarter of the Earth’s surface is biologically productive: forests, fields, wetlands and seas rich in fish – especially the coastal areas.

The other three quarters are generally unproductive consisting of deserts, ice-cover and deep oceans. What does that mean per person? With a world population of over eight billion, there is about 1.5 hectares of productive land per person today.

Is the goal therefore for people to use all 1.5 hectares per person? Probably not. We share this planet with 5-10 million distinct animal and plant species, all of which need some of that regenerative capacity to live. Resilient ecosystems rely upon robust biodiversity and therefore both may be central for climate stability. Additionally, it may be prudent to leave additional biocapacity reserves for the growing human population.

Countries’ endowments

Countries are unequally endowed with biocapacity. Bangladesh, Israel, or Rwanda have about ¼ of a global hectare per resident. Switzerland, Senegal, or Italy contain about one global hectare per person. France, Panama, Croatia, Austria, Ireland and Chile hover around 3 global hectares per inhabitant.

These countries, and many more, run an ecological deficit, using above and beyond what their own ecosystems can regenerate.

Western European countries, for example, currently use around 4 global hectares per person to produce all the food, wood and fiber that these countries’ residents consume, to absorb the corresponding waste (especially the CO₂ from fossil energy), and to accommodate the cities, roads and villages (which often occupy the most fertile soils).

These physical constraints do not just limit biological regeneration; they are an increasingly important factor in a country’s long-term economic exposure to global resource constraints in a climate challenged world.

Switzerland as an example

The Swiss population, for example, used 4.2 global hectares per resident in 2024. But Switzerland itself only contained 1.1 global hectares of biocapacity. This means domestic biocapacity only covered 93 days of the year.  As a result, Switzerland used up its own biocapacity budget by April 4. Hence April 4 is Switzerland’s Deficit Day.

So why does this matter? On average, Swiss residents have greater financial resources than many others around the world and can purchase the remaining resources they need from abroad, including roughly half of their food. And further, emitting CO₂ into the global atmosphere still comes at little direct cost to those who generate it.

However, in times of overshoot, competition for the planet’s biocapacity is intensifying. Humanity’s demand now exceeds what Earth’s ecosystems can regenerate by about 78 percent. This growing ecological overshoot is accumulating as global ecological debt, which results in rising atmospheric CO₂ levels, increasing water scarcity, and shrinking forests. As these pressures mount, a critical question emerges: How will Switzerland continue to be able to secure the resources it currently depends on?

Economic implications

On a global scale, it is impossible for all countries to import more than they export. This intensifies competition for natural resources.

Such competition presents an economic challenge for all nations, including high-income countries. The relative income of most high-income countries is declining compared to the rest of the world, as GDP growth in lower-income regions, such as India and China, is rising more rapidly. For instance, the share of a Swiss resident’s income in total global GDP today is only 62% of what it was 30 years ago. This decline in relative income weakens Swiss buyers’ competitive advantage when bidding for the global resources they consume.

The impact of this declining income is further exacerbated by the growth of global ecological overshoot, which has risen from 22% in 1993 to 78% in 2024. These two trends—declining relative income and increasing global overshoot—reinforce each other, illustrating how resource deficits are becoming an escalating risk for Switzerland’s economy.

However, this outcome is not inevitable. Economies that recognize the importance of resource security for long-term stability and proactively reduce their dependence on finite resources with foresight and determination can thrive both now and in the future. This stands in stark contrast to the current approach of many countries, which largely involves waiting for the next climate conference (COP) while remaining unprepared for the predictable challenges ahead.

Table 1: Country Deficit Days. It is the day when a country has used up its own domestic biocapacity budget for the year. Source: National Footprint and Biocapacity Accounts 2025 edition, data year 2024.

Countries with biocapacities larger than their own Ecological Footprint do not have deficit days. Table 2 below shows some of those countries.

Table 2:  Countries without a Deficit Day. These countries’ biocapacity exceeds their Ecological Footprint for consumption. The second column shows the size of their biocapacity compared to their consumption footprint. Source: National Footprint and Biocapacity Accounts 2025 edition, data year 2024.

Additional Resources

Country Overshoot Day
Country data on Footprint Data Platform
Earth Overshoot Day
About the Ecological Footprint
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