Last updated: November 6, 2026
Private credit market size, valuation and NAV, by the numbers
Private credit assets under management, registered-fund holdings, Level 3 shares, secondary-market volume, default rates, and redemption queues, from published sources.
Two different kinds of number sit behind this name, and they must not be mixed. The first kind measures the size of the market: assets under management, fundraising, and the share of corporate lending that has moved outside the banks. The second kind measures the price of the market: what share of it sits in assets with no observable price, how often the marks are tested against real transactions, and what happens when investors ask for their money back. The first kind tells a reader how big the valuation job has become. The second tells a reader why the job is hard.
What the latest numbers show is a market that keeps growing and a pricing discipline that is catching up late: assets reached $4.1 trillion at the end of 2025 on the broadest count, while more than half of interval fund assets sit in Level 3, secondary volume jumped 42 percent in a year, and redemption queues at the largest non-traded funds stretched to double-digit shares of outstanding stock.
The figures
| Figure | Value | Trend vs prior period | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Global private credit assets under management, end 2025 | $4.1 trillion, up 17% year over year | ▲ Up Prior: $3.5 trillion at end 2024; second consecutive year of 17% growth | Alternative Credit Council / AIMA, Financing the Economy 2026 (with Houlihan Lokey) |
| Private credit loans to U.S. companies, Federal Reserve measure | About $1.4 trillion, about 10% of U.S. nonfinancial corporate debt | ● Baseline Latest data, second half of 2025; about one-third of below-investment-grade debt excluding bank loans; built on a narrower definition than the ACC total, so the two are not a growth rate | Federal Reserve, Financial Stability Report, May 2026, Box 4.1 |
| Global private credit AUM, Investment Company Institute measure | Over $1.7 trillion as of June 2025, from $357 billion in 2010 | ▲ Up Nearly fivefold growth over fifteen years on this measure | SEC staff statement (September 28, 2026), citing Investment Company Institute, via Simpson Thacher |
| Private credit in registered fund portfolios, end 2025 | Roughly $270 billion, up nearly 60% since 2020 | ▲ Up Prior: about $170 billion in December 2020 | SEC, Statement on Fair Value Measurement and Disclosure Considerations for Private Assets (September 28, 2026) |
| Level 3 share of registered fund assets, year-end 2025 | 54% of interval fund assets; 44% of tender offer fund assets | ● Baseline Assets with no observable market inputs, valued on significant unobservable inputs and management judgment; a further 21% of interval fund assets and 42% of tender offer fund assets were valued using NAV as a practical expedient | SEC staff statement, September 28, 2026 |
| Secondary-market volume | Approximately $220 billion in 2025 | ▲ Up Prior: approximately $156 billion in 2024; secondaries funds were 15% of private equity fundraising in Q1–Q3 2025, nearly double the five-year average | SEC staff statement, September 28, 2026 |
| Direct lending share of private credit | 56% by mid-2025, from 13% in 2010 | ▲ Up Direct lending is now the majority of the asset class | SEC staff statement, via Simpson Thacher |
| Private debt share of leveraged buyout financing, 2024 | 77% of LBO debt financing globally | ● Baseline Highest share since 2015, on S&P Global Market Intelligence analysis | Arcesium, “Behind the Private Credit Surge,” citing S&P Global Market Intelligence |
| Private credit AUM forecast, Morgan Stanley | $5 trillion by 2029 | ● Forecast Projection, not an actual; from about $3.5 trillion at the start of 2026 on Morgan Stanley's measure | Morgan Stanley, Private Credit Outlook |
| Private credit AUM forecast, BlackRock | $4.5 trillion by 2030, from $1.6 trillion in 2024 | ● Forecast Projection, not an actual; BlackRock's own private credit client assets about $220 billion once its HPS acquisition completes | PitchBook, reporting BlackRock's March 2025 forecast |
| Fitch U.S. private credit default rate | 9.2% in 2025 in the Privately Monitored Ratings portfolio; 6.0% twelve-month rate in April 2026 | ▲ Up Prior: 8.1% in 2024; twelve-month rate 5.7% in March 2026 and 5.8% in April 2025; figures as reported in secondary summaries of Fitch Ratings data | Fitch Ratings data, as reported in Private Equity Bros; twelve-month rate as reported by Credit and Collection News |
| Business development company losses, H1 2026 | $7.00 billion of net realized and unrealized losses across 125 BDCs | ▲ Up sharply Prior: $1.64 billion in H1 2025 and $0.56 billion in 2024; losses were 65.6% of $10.67 billion of net investment income; 179 BDCs held $574.93 billion of total assets at June 30, 2026 | Crowdfunded Wealth, census of SEC BDC data sets |
| Payment-in-kind interest share of BDC income, H1 2026 | 6.09% of investment income across 74 BDCs | ▼ Down slightly Prior: 6.28% a year earlier; 4.55% against 4.18% at the 33 non-traded BDCs | Crowdfunded Wealth, census of SEC BDC data sets |
| Redemption requests, Blackstone Private Credit Fund | 10.30% of shares in the offer that closed May 2026; 48.5% of requests paid | ▲ Up Prior: 1.46% of shares in December 2024; Apollo Debt Solutions rose from 0.77% to 16.80% over the same span, HPS Corporate Lending from 1.40% to 13.30% | Crowdfunded Wealth, census of SEC filings |
| Fund leverage, Alternative Credit Council 2025 survey | 59% of corporate lending funds operate with leverage; aggregate fund borrowing about $399 billion, roughly 25% of net AUM | ● Baseline 41% of flagship corporate lending funds operate without investment leverage; about one-sixth of funds surveyed reported non-accrual rates above 5%; 10.6% of loans had been subject to a significant amendment, down from 11.7% in 2024 | Finadium, reporting the ACC 2025 survey (October 22, 2026) |
| Financial Stability Board private credit estimate | $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion at end 2024 | ● Baseline FSB's first dedicated report on private credit vulnerabilities, May 6, 2026; the FSB notes the sector has not been tested through a severe or prolonged downturn | Financial Stability Board, Report on Vulnerabilities in Private Credit (May 6, 2026) |
How to read these numbers
Included: the Alternative Credit Council's end-2025 AUM total; the Federal Reserve's narrower U.S. measure; the SEC staff statement's registered-fund holdings, Level 3 shares, and secondary-market volume; direct-lending and LBO-financing shares; Morgan Stanley's and BlackRock's forecasts, labeled as forecasts; Fitch default rates as reported in secondary summaries; and BDC losses, PIK shares, and redemption queues from an independent census of SEC filings. Excluded: any single "market size" headline presented without its definition, because published totals range from about $1.4 trillion to $4.1 trillion depending on what is counted — the definitions are shown beside each figure instead; and any blending of AUM, invested capital, and dry powder, which describe different things.
Forecasts are labeled as forecasts, not actuals. Secondary summaries of Fitch data are labeled as such; the underlying Fitch figures are not reproduced verbatim from a Fitch publication. BDC figures are arithmetic from SEC filings as compiled by the cited census, not from a BDC's own press release.
Disclaimer: Figures on this page are aggregated public estimates assembled for information only. They are not investment advice, legal advice, or a professional opinion on any specific case, claim, project, or purchase. Original reporting and the underlying surveys remain the work of the sources linked above; this page summarizes their published figures with attribution and adds no proprietary dataset. Aggregated public estimates, not investment or professional advice.
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Changelog
- November 6, 2026: Initial edition — ACC end-2025 AUM, Federal Reserve and FSB measures, SEC registered-fund holdings and Level 3 shares, secondary-market volume, direct-lending and LBO shares, Morgan Stanley and BlackRock forecasts, Fitch default rates, BDC losses and PIK shares, redemption queues, and fund leverage figures established.