Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of debt financing on both performance and systematic risk in Amman Stock Exchange listed firms. The authors focus the study to analyze the differences between services and industrial firms in one sense and the differences between international and domestic firms in the other sense, as the study depends on the geographical distribution of sales to classify the nationality of firms. Design/methodology/approach The study sample includes all listed Jordanian firms in Amman Stock Exchange from 2005 to 2013 for both industrial and services sectors. Using panel data techniques, fixed effects regression with modified Driscoll-Kraay standard error as a remedy for heteroscedasticity problem is employed. Findings The results show that there is a significant negative impact of debt financing on the firm’s performance, where the sector and the sales nationality play an important role. Moreover, the results indicate that there is a significant positive impact of debt financing on the firm’s systematic risk. Taking the sector and sales nationality into consideration, the authors find that the debt financing has no significant impact on the systematic risk of services firms and domestic firms. Additionally, the findings indicate that services firms and international firms are, on average, more riskier than industrial firms and domestic firms, respectively. Originality/value The paper provides a visibility on the comparison between international and local firms in Jordan in terms of the impact of debt financing on the financial performance and systematic risk in one research.