Repayments of Short-Term Debt

Category

Cash Flow

Units

Currency

US-GAAP elements

RepaymentsOfShortTermDebtRepaymentsOfCommercialPaperRepaymentsOfLinesOfCredit

Reference

ASC 230, Statement of Cash Flows (financing activities)

Source

Reported in SEC EDGAR filings (US-GAAP XBRL taxonomy)

Repayments of short-term debt is the cash a company paid during a period to settle borrowings that were originally due within one year or within the operating cycle if longer, such as commercial paper, short-term bank loans, and draws on credit lines. It is a cash outflow in the financing section of the cash flow statement.

It is shown only when a company reports its short-term borrowings gross. Many companies instead report a single net figure for short-term debt, in which case repayments are not visible on their own.

ASC 230 lets companies net borrowings and repayments of debt with maturities of three months or less, and many choose to. Those that report gross use RepaymentsOfShortTermDebt in XBRL, or more specific elements such as RepaymentsOfCommercialPaper and RepaymentsOfLinesOfCredit. Where a company draws and repays a revolving facility many times during the year, gross repayments can be very large relative to the balance outstanding at any one time.

Short-term debt here means debt that was short-term when issued. Paying the current portion of a long-term loan is a repayment of long-term debt, even though the balance sheet shows it within current liabilities. Credit lines can fall on either side depending on their terms, which is why the XBRL taxonomy distinguishes long-term line-of-credit elements from general ones.

On its own this line says little, since it mostly reflects the churn of revolving borrowing. It becomes informative when compared with short-term proceeds over the same period, and with the short-term debt balance at period end. A company that is steadily repaying more than it borrows is reducing reliance on short-term funding. A company that keeps its borrowings high and rolls them over quarter after quarter depends on lenders continuing to extend credit.