Transparency of debt terms and conditions is a prerequisite to responsible borrowing and lending, and crucial to effective policy decision-making and risk management. While sovereign borrowers bear primary responsibility for reporting public debt data, creditors must also contribute to ensure that lending is transparent. This is recognised in two creditor driven initiatives: the ‘G20 operational guidelines for sustainable financing’ (2017) and the Institute for International Finance ‘Voluntary principles for debt transparency’ (2019).  The effectiveness of the Guidelines and Principles is undermined, however, by a lack of practical guidance for implementing them and monitoring compliance by debtors and creditors.  Crucial to putting the Guidelines and Principles into practice will be the inclusion of exceptions to non-disclosure provisions in debt contracts, allowing the parties to comply with them by disclosing key terms and conditions irrespective of confidentiality clauses. This could be enhanced by the addition of a disclosure annex