Business Process Management (BPM) is a critical methodology for organizations aiming to enhance operational efficiency and achieve strategic objectives. While BPM’s iterative lifecycle approach ensures continuous improvement, it is prone to shortcuts and compromises that prioritize short-term benefits over long-term sustainability. This tradeoff has been previously examined by the authors and is referred to as Business Process Debt (BPD), akin to Technical Debt (TD) in software engineering. However, unlike TD, which benefits from a well-defined set of indicators to identify its presence, the concept of BPD lacks a corresponding framework or established indicators. This paper addresses this gap by proposing a framework to identify potential BPD specifically during the business process modeling phase. Drawing parallels from software metrics used to define TD indicators, the framework leverages validated business process model metrics correlated with the External Quality Characteristic (EQC) of maintainability. The framework introduces the Total Maintainability Score (TMS), which aggregates these metrics to evaluate the overall maintainability of business process models. By classifying models into low, moderate, or high maintainability levels, and recognizing the inverse relationship between maintainability and debt, the TMS provides a practical indicator of potential BPD. The framework’s applicability is demonstrated through a case study of the European Commission’s New Computerized Transit System (NCTS). The findings highlight its potential to facilitate informed decision-making and proactive BPD management, thereby supporting long-term sustainable BPM initiatives.