What Is a Solvency Ratio, and How Is It Calculated?

What Is a Solvency Ratio?

A solvency ratio is a key metric used to measure an enterprise’s ability to meet its long-term debt obligations and is used often by prospective business lenders. A solvency ratio indicates whether a company’s cash flow is sufficient to meet its long-term liabilities and thus is a measure of its financial health. An unfavorable ratio can indicate some likelihood that a company will default on its debt obligations.

Understanding Solvency Ratios

A solvency ratio is one of many metrics used to determine whether a company can stay solvent in the long term. A solvency ratio is a comprehensive measure of solvency, as it measures a firm's actual cash flow, rather than net income, by adding back depreciation and other non-cash expenses to assess a company’s capacity to stay afloat.

It measures this cash flow capacity versus all liabilities, rather than only short-term debt. This way, a solvency ratio assesses a company's long-term health by evaluating its repayment ability for its long-term debt and the interest on that debt.

Solvency ratios vary from industry to industry. A company’s solvency ratio should, therefore, be compared with its competitors in the same industry rather than viewed in isolation.

A solvency ratio terminology is also used when evaluating insurance companies, comparing the size of their capital relative to the premiums written, and measures the risk an insurer faces on claims it cannot cover.

Types of Solvency Ratios

Interest Coverage Ratio

The interest coverage ratio is calculated as follows:

$\text{Interest Coverage Ratio}=\frac{\text{EBIT}}{\text{Interest Expenses}}$Interest Coverage Ratio=Interest ExpensesEBIT​

where:

• EBIT = Earnings before interest and taxes

The interest coverage ratio measures how many times a company can cover its current interest payments with its available earnings. In other words, it measures the margin of safety a company has for paying interest on its debt during a given period.

The higher the ratio, the better. If the ratio falls to 1.5 or below, it may indicate that a company will have difficulty meeting the interest on its debts.

Debt-to-Assets Ratio

The debt-to-assets ratio is calculated as follows:

$\text{Debt-to-Assets Ratio}=\frac{\text{Debt}}{\text{Assets}}$Debt-to-Assets Ratio=AssetsDebt​

The debt-to-assets ratio measures a company's total debt to its total assets. It measures a company's leverage and indicates how much of the company is funded by debt versus assets, and therefore, its ability to pay off its debt with its available assets. A higher ratio, especially above 1.0, indicates that a company is significantly funded by debt and may have difficulty meetings its obligations.

Equity Ratio

The shareholder equity ratio is calculated as follows:

$\begin{aligned}&\text{SER}=\frac{\text{TSE}}{\text{Total assets}}\\\textbf{where:}\\&\text{SER}\!=\!\text{Shareholder equity ratio}\\&\text{TSE}\!=\!\text{Total shareholder equity}\end{aligned}$where:​SER=Total assetsTSE​SER=Shareholder equity ratioTSE=Total shareholder equity​

The equity ratio, or equity-to-assets, shows how much of a company is funded by equity as opposed to debt. The higher the number, the healthier a company is. The lower the number, the more debt a company has on its books relative to equity.

Debt-to-Equity (D/E) Ratio

The debt-to-equity (D/E) ratio is calculated as follows:

$\text{Debt to Equity Ratio}=\frac{\text{Debt Outstanding}}{\text{Equity}}$Debt to Equity Ratio=EquityDebt Outstanding​

The D/E ratio is similar to the debt-to-assets ratio, in that it indicates how a company is funded, in this case, by debt. The higher the ratio, the more debt a company has on its books, meaning the likelihood of default is higher. The ratio looks at how much of the debt can be covered by equity if the company needed to liquidate.

Solvency Ratios vs. Liquidity Ratios

Solvency ratios and liquidity ratios are similar but have some important differences. Both of these categories of financial ratios will indicate the health of a company. The main difference is that solvency ratios offer a longer-term outlook on a company whereas liquidity ratios focus on the shorter term.

Solvency ratios look at all assets of a company, including long-term debts such as bonds with maturities longer than a year. Liquidity ratios, on the other hand, look at just the most liquid assets, such as cash and marketable securities, and how those can be used to cover upcoming obligations in the near term.

If an investor wants to know whether a company will be able to pay its bills next year, they are often most interested in looking at the liquidity of the company. If a company is illiquid, they won't be able to pay their short-term bills as they come due. On the other hand, investors more interested in a long-term health assessment of a company would want to analyze solvency ratios.

Limitations of Solvency Ratios

A company may have a low debt amount, but if its cash management practices are poor and accounts payable are surging as a result its solvency position may not be as solid as would be indicated by measures that include only debt.

It's important to look at a variety of ratios to comprehend the true financial health of a company, as well as understand the reason that a ratio is what it is. Furthermore, a number itself won't give much of an indication. A company needs to be compared to its peers, particularly the strong companies in its industry, to determine if the ratio is an acceptable one or not.

For example, an airline company will have more debt than a technology firm just by the nature of its business. An airline company has to buy planes, pay for hangar space, and buy jet fuel; costs that are significantly more than a technology company will ever have to face.

Example of Solvency Ratios

Below is a screenshot of Amazon's financial position at the end of 2023. At the end of Dec. 31, 2023, Amazon had over $527.9 billion of total company assets:

Although total debt is not explicitly shown on the financial statement, it can easily be calculated as the difference between total assets and total stockholders' equity (both of which are shown). Using subtraction, Amazon's debt was 316,632 million at the end of 2022, and 325,979 million at the end of 2023.

One can get a sense of Amazon's solvency by comparing last year's debt-to-equity ratio to this year's ratio. The ratios for each year are:

• 2022 D/E Ratio: $316,632 / $146,043 = 2.17
• 2023 D/E Ratio: $325,979 / $201,875 = 1.61

From these two calculations, one can assess that Amazon's long-term solvency increased, and the company's financial positioning became less risky over the course of the year. This is because the company now has proportionally less debt on its books compared to equity.

In another example, Amazon's debt-to-assets ratio also increased. This should come as no surprise as the company was shown to have taken on more debt in comparison to equity, so all else being equal, the relationship between debt and total assets should have also changed.

• 2022 D/A Ratio: $316,632 / $462,675 = 0.68
• 2023 D/A Ratio: $325,979 / $527,854 = 0.62

This means that the company used to have $0.68 of debt for every $1 of assets. In other words, 68% of all company assets were financed through debt. Now, the company has taken on a little bit more debt, but also increased its assets, so only 62% of its assets are financed through debt. Slight variations like this are often not a big deal, but more consistent long-term trends or radical changes from one period to the next can indicate how effectively a company is managing its assets.

The Bottom Line

Solvency ratios are financial measurements that usually look at a company's total assets, total debt, or total equity to better understand the company's financing structure. This financial structure plays a critical part in knowing whether the company will be able to pay its long-term debts as they come due and have enough money in the long run. The most common solvency ratios are the debt-to-equity ratio, the debt-to-assets ratio, and and the interest coverage ratio.