Debt to Equity Ratio: Free Checker for Any US Stock

The short answer

The debt to equity ratio shows how much a company owes for every dollar that belongs to its owners.

A ratio of 0.5 means it owes 50 cents for each $1 of equity. A ratio of 2 means it owes $2.

Lower is usually safer. Under 1 is comfortable for most companies. Above 3 is heavy. But what counts as normal depends a lot on the industry, so the checker shows the middle value for each company's industry too.

What the checker does

Type a ticker or a company name. You see:

• The ratio, with a plain label: low, moderate, high or very high.
• The numbers behind it: total debt and shareholders' equity, from the latest annual report.
• The industry's middle value, so you can tell if a company owes more or less than its peers.
• Five years of the ratio, to see if debt is rising or falling.

There is also a small calculator at the bottom. Type any two numbers from a balance sheet and get the ratio.

It covers about 4,700 US-listed companies. It's free, and you don't need an account.

How it works

Debt to equity = total debt ÷ shareholders' equity

• Total debt is money the company borrowed and must pay back: bank loans and bonds, both long-term and due within a year.
• Shareholders' equity is what would be left for the owners if the company sold everything it owns and paid everything it owes. Accountants call it book value.

We take both from the company's annual reports filed with the SEC, the US regulator for stocks. It's the same number as the Debt check on our stock pages.

What is a good debt to equity ratio?

There is no single good number. Across the companies we cover that have a ratio, the middle value is about 0.67. Here is the middle value by industry, from our October 2026 data (banks, insurers and companies with negative equity aren't included):

Industry	Middle debt to equity
Health care	0.34
Energy	0.45
Technology	0.48
Industrials	0.58
Materials	0.71
Everyday goods	0.73
Retail & consumer	0.82
Real estate	0.90
Media & telecom	1.05
Utilities	1.44

Utilities owe more because their income is steady. People pay their power bills even in a recession, so lenders are happy to lend. A software company with lumpy sales can't safely borrow as much.

Our labels use the same cut-offs as our stock pages:

• Low: under 0.5.
• Moderate: 0.5 to 1.
• High: 1 to 3.
• Very high: 3 or more.

Real examples

From each company's 2025 annual report:

• Meta (META): 0.28. It owes 28 cents per $1 of equity. Low.
• Apple (AAPL): 1.35. High on paper. Apple also holds a lot of cash and earns large profits each year, which a lender looks at too.
• Coca-Cola (KO): 1.41. High, and above most everyday-goods companies. Down from 1.86 in 2021.
• Boeing (BA): 9.92. Very high. Years of losses pushed its equity below zero. It only turned positive again in 2025, and it is still small next to the debt.
• McDonald's (MCD): no ratio. Its equity is below zero.

When the ratio doesn't work

Negative equity. Some companies owe more than everything they own is worth on their books. Then the ratio means nothing. Companies that spend a lot buying back their own shares can end up here. McDonald's, Lowe's and AbbVie are examples. It isn't always a sign of trouble, but it leaves less room for error.

Banks, insurers and brokers. They borrow money to lend or invest it. Debt is their raw material, so the ratio doesn't fit them. We judge them on other numbers.

Companies with a lending arm. Ford, for example, lends money to people who buy its cars. That debt makes the ratio look much worse than the car business is.

What the ratio can't tell you

• Whether the company can pay. A company with high debt and steady cash may be fine. One with low debt and no cash may not. Look at its spare cash too.
• Leases. We count loans and bonds, not lease payments for shops or offices.
• Book value can mislead. Equity uses accounting values, not what the business is really worth. A brand like Coca-Cola is worth far more than its books say.
• Some debt we can't read yet. A few companies report debt in ways our check doesn't pick up. Then we say we couldn't work it out, rather than guess.

Questions

What is a good debt to equity ratio? Under 1 is comfortable for most companies, and under 0.5 is low. But compare with the company's industry. A utility at 1.5 can be normal, while a software firm at 1.5 is high.

How do you calculate debt to equity? Divide total debt by shareholders' equity. A company with $40 billion of debt and $20 billion of equity has a ratio of 2.

Is a high debt to equity ratio bad? Not always. It means more risk if sales fall, because the debt must still be paid. Businesses with steady sales usually carry more debt than businesses with ups and downs.

What does a negative debt to equity ratio mean? It means equity is below zero: the company owes more than it owns on its books. The ratio stops making sense, so we show the equity figure instead.

Why doesn't the checker work for banks? Banks borrow to lend. Debt is how they make money, so the ratio would always look huge. We judge banks on other numbers.

Where does the data come from? From each company's annual reports filed with the SEC. We read them every night.

Is it free? Yes. No account and no signup.

The next step

This page is for learning. It isn't advice about what to buy or sell.

Debt is one part of the picture. Each company's page shows our verdict on whether it's a good business at a fair price, with its debt, cash and warning signs. To look for signs of trouble in the filings, try the free red flag scanner. To see companies with little debt that pass our checks tonight, see the low-debt list.