The purposes of the study were to investigate the effects of the debt burden which was measured objectively, the types of debts and socio-economic characteristics on the subjective debt burden of households. The questionaires for 457 households who hold some debts were analyzed using t-test, ANOVA and Duncan’s multiple range teat. The major finding are summarized as follows: (1) the objective debt burdens which were measured by three variables, that is monthly debt repayment, the ratio of debt repayment to household income and total debt amount, affected the subjective debt burden. The households in which the monthly debt repayment was over 200 thousand won, the debt repayment was over 20% of the household income and the total debt amount was over 15 minion won felt higher debt burden. (2) the types of debts, which were classified into four groups such as debts from financial institutes, debts from private sources, credit card debts and debt from retailers, influenced differently the subjective debt burden. Holding debts from financial institutes and debts from private sources increased the subjective debt burden whereas holding credit card debts and debt from retailers did not. (3) the level of subjective debt burden were different according to household income, change in income due to IMF crisis, financial assets, home ownership, residence, householder’s age, job and educational levee. Based on the results, criterion for household’s debt management were suggested.