The national debt of the United States is the total national debt owed by the federal government of the United States to treasury security holders. At any given point in time, the U.S. national debt is the cumulative face value of all outstanding treasury securities that have been issued by the U.S. Department of Treasury and American federal agencies. It does not generally include unfunded or future obligations. The U.S. has the largest external debt in the world alongside the world's largest economy. The ratio of debt to GDP oscillates as economic growth, inflation, or public finances change. The US debt-to-GDP ratio has historically increased during armed conflicts, pandemics, and economic recessions and then subsequently declines. The national debt exceeds total annual U.S. economic output.
The federal government generates revenue through taxation before spending on public services, creating a government budget balance. If not balanced, the government produces either a "national deficit" or "national surplus". If public spending exceeds revenue, the deficit is financed by borrowing money and taking on debt. If revenue exceeds public spending, the surplus is used to reduce the debt. The national debt is the cumulative debt the government takes on to finance deficits. This debt typically increases with higher government spending and decreases with higher tax receipts, both of which fluctuate during a fiscal year. The government is limited in how much it can borrow in aggregate through the U.S. debt ceiling established by the U.S. Congress.About 0.8% of debt ($900,000,000,000) is not covered by the ceiling, per The Debt Limit: History and Recent Increases, p. 4. (Note: This includes pre-1917 debt), fpc.state.gov; accessed August 22, 2016.
There are two main components of U.S. national debt:
Debt held by the public: held by investors outside the federal government, including those held by individuals, corporations, the U.S. Federal Reserve, and foreign, state and local governments. Debt held by government (intragovernmental debt): non-marketable Treasury securities held in accounts of programs administered by the federal government, such as the Social Security Trust Fund.
History
The United States federal government has continuously had a fluctuating public debt since its formation in 1789, except for about a year during 1835–1836, a period in which the nation, during the presidency of Andrew Jackson, completely paid the national debt. To allow comparisons over the years, public debt is often expressed as a ratio to GDP. The United States public debt as a percentage of GDP reached its highest level during Harry Truman's first presidential term, during and after World War II. Public debt as a percentage of GDP fell rapidly in the post-World War II period and reached a low in 1974 under president Richard Nixon. Debt as a share of GDP has consistently increased since then, except during the presidencies of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.
Public debt rose sharply during the 1980s, as Ronald Reagan negotiated with Congress to cut tax rates and increase military spending. It fell during the 1990s because of decreased military spending, increased taxes and the 1990s U.S. economic boom. Public debt rose sharply during the presidency of George W. Bush and after the 2008 financial crisis, with resulting significant tax revenue declines and spending increases, such as the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
In September 2018, the U.S. Congressional Budget Office (CBO) wrote that the federal budget deficit was c.$782 billion for the fiscal year 2018—which ran from October 2017 to September 2018. This was $116 billion more than in FY2017. The Treasury statements as summarized in the CBO report showed that corporate taxes for 2017 and 2018 declined by $92 billion representing a drop of 31%. The CBO added that "about half of the decline ... occurred since June" when some of the provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 took effect, which included the "new lower corporate tax rate and the expanded ability to immediately deduct the full value of equipment purchases" (~$ in ).
According to articles in The Wall Street Journal and Business Insider, based on documents released on October 29, 2018, by the U.S. Treasury Department, the department's projection estimated that by the fourth quarter of the FY2018, it would have issued c. $1.338 trillion (~$ in ) in debt. This would have been the highest debt issuance since 2010, when it reached $1.586 trillion (~$ in ). The Treasury anticipated that the total "net marketable debt"—net marketable securities—issued in the fourth quarter would reach $425 billion; which would raise the 2018 "total debt issuance" to over a trillion dollars of new debt, representing a "146% jump from 2017". That is the highest fourth quarter issuance "since 2008, at the height of the financial crisis." The primary drivers of new debt issuance are "stagnant", "sluggish tax revenues", a decrease in "corporate tax revenue", due to the GOP Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, the "bipartisan budget agreement", and "higher government spending". Due to the Coronavirus epidemic, the national debt rose to levels that exceeded what had been seen during World War Two, meaning that the U.S. had officially grown its debt amount to never before seen numbers.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government spent trillions in virus aid and economic relief. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the budget deficit for fiscal year 2020 would increase to $3.3 trillion or 16% GDP, more than triple that of 2019 and the largest as a percentage of GDP since 1945. In December 2021, debt held by the public was estimated at 0.962 times GDP, and approximately 33% of this public debt was owned by foreigners (government and private).
In February 2024, the CBO estimated that Federal debt held by the public is projected to rise from 99 percent of GDP in 2024, to 116 percent in 2034, and would continue to grow if current laws generally remained unchanged. Over that period, the growth of interest costs and mandatory spending outpaces the growth of revenues and the economy, driving up debt. If those factors persist beyond 2034, the result would be to push federal debt higher still, to 172 percent of GDP in 2054.
In December 2021, the total amount of U.S. Treasury securities held by foreign entities was $7.7 trillion, up from $7.1 trillion in December 2020. Total U.S. federal government debt breached the $30 trillion mark for the first time in history in February 2022. In December 2023, total federal debt was $33.1 trillion; $26.5 trillion held by the public and $12.1 trillion in intragovernmental debt. The annualized cost of servicing this debt was $726 billion in July 2023, which accounted for 14% of the total federal spending. In recent decades, aging demographics and rising healthcare costs have led to concern about the long-term sustainability of the federal government's fiscal policies. In February 2024, the total federal government debt rose to $34.4 trillion, after increasing by approximately $1 trillion during each of two separate 100-day periods since the previous June. In 2024, federal interest payments on the national debt surpassed spending on both Medicare and national defense.
On October 23, 2025, the national debt reached $38 trillion, a new high. The milestone was achieved amidst a Federal government shutdown, which by then had been going on for 23 days. The shutdown caused delays in economic activity and the postponement of financial decisions, pushing the number up even further. An increase of $1 trillion, from $37 to $38 trillion, was recorded between August 12 and October 23 of the same year, a time interval of merely 71 days. More than $382 billion of debt were added in the first 23 days of the government shutdown alone, according to the Joint Economic Committee (JEC), translating to an average rate of increase of $192,200 per second.Calculation of rate of rise: 3.82e11/(71*86400) = 192,230.. ~ 192,200.
On August 18, 2026, the national debt reached a new high of $40 trillion, after doubling since 2016 largely due to tariff refunds and COVID-19 pandemic relief spending.
Recent statistics
+ Debt service statistics and annual federal receipts in billions of dollars, 2009 to 2023FYGAO: (Total) Debt ServiceFRED: (Total) Debt ServiceGAO: (Publicly-held) Debt Service FRED: Fed Annual ReceiptsFRED: Debt Service/Annual Receipts2023875.598167844392022723.6829.6496.54896202157561239240472020527517.737134212019574564.540434632018528.457135733302017456.74932963316201643046027332682015407434.72513250201443344226030212013425425247.627752012432417245.424502011453.6433250.923032010413399.52152162.72009380.7353.81892105
Valuation and measurements Public and government accounts
The national debt can be classified into marketable or non-marketable securities. Most of the marketable securities are Treasury notes, bills, and bonds held by investors and governments globally. The non-marketable securities are mainly the "government account series" owed to certain government trust funds such as the Social Security Trust Fund, which represented $2.82 trillion (~$ in dollars) in 2017.
The non-marketable securities represent amounts owed to program beneficiaries. For example, the cash is received but spent for other purposes. If the government continues to run deficits in other parts of the budget, the government will have to issue debt held by the public to fund the Social Security Trust Fund, in effect exchanging one type of debt for the other. Other large intragovernmental holders include the Federal Housing Administration, the Federal Savings and Loan Corporation's Resolution Fund and the Federal Hospital Insurance Trust Fund (Medicare).
Accounting treatment
Only debt held by the public is reported as a liability on the consolidated financial statements of the United States government. Debt held by U.S. government accounts is an asset to those accounts but a liability to the Treasury; they offset each other in the consolidated financial statements. Government receipts and expenditures are normally presented on a cash rather than an accrual basis, although the accrual basis may provide more information on the longer-term implications of the government's annual operations. The United States public debt is often expressed as a ratio of public debt to GDP. The ratio of debt to GDP may decrease as a result of a government surplus as well as from growth of GDP and inflation.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac obligations excluded
Under normal accounting rules, fully owned companies would be consolidated into the books of their owners, but the large size of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has made U.S. governments reluctant to incorporate them into its own books. When the two mortgage companies required bail-outs, White House Budget Director Jim Nussle, on September 12, 2008, initially indicated their budget plans would not incorporate the government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) debt into the budget because of the temporary nature of the conservator intervention.Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac to Be Kept Off Budget, White House Says (September 12, 2008), Bloomberg.com. As the intervention has dragged out, some pundits began to question this accounting treatment, noting that changes in August 2012 "makes them even more permanent wards of the state and turns the government's preferred stock into a permanent, perpetual kind of security".The case for keeping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac off the government's books has gotten even weaker, professional.wsj.com