LEDGERWIRE DATA

US national debt statistics 2026

Total US public debt outstanding was $40.59 trillion on 29 October 2026. Below are 46 key statistics on the size of the debt, how fast it is growing, its yearly totals and the milestones it has passed, each calculated from official Treasury figures and linkable on its own.

Updated 30 October 2026. Source: U.S. Treasury, Bureau of the Fiscal Service: Debt to the Penny. Daily chart and full data: US national debt tracker. Your share of the debt: US national debt per person calculator. Download these figures: key figures (CSV) · by year (CSV).

Latest figures

  1. Total US public debt outstanding was $40.59 trillion on 29 October 2026, the latest day reported by the Treasury. #
  2. Debt held by the public was $32.71 trillion on 29 October 2026, or 80.6% of the total. #
  3. Intragovernmental holdings, mainly federal trust funds such as Social Security, were $7.88 trillion, or 19.4% of the total. #
  4. The 29 October 2026 figure is the highest total in the daily series since January 2020. #

Recent pace of borrowing

  1. Total debt rose by $496.7 billion between 29 September 2026 and 29 October 2026. #
  2. Over roughly three months, from 31 July 2026, total debt rose by $822.0 billion. #
  3. Over one year, from 29 October 2025, total debt rose by $2.52 trillion, a change of 6.6%. #
  4. That one-year change works out to about $6.9 billion a day, $287 million an hour or $79,753 a second. #
  5. Debt held by the public rose by $2.22 trillion over the same year, while intragovernmental holdings rose by $293.0 billion. #

Debt by calendar year

  1. 2020: total debt ended the year at $27.75 trillion (31 December 2020), up $4.58 trillion or 19.7% from 2 January 2020. #
  2. 2021: total debt ended the year at $29.62 trillion (31 December 2021), up $1.87 trillion or 6.7% on the end of 2020. #
  3. 2022: total debt ended the year at $31.42 trillion (30 December 2022), up $1.80 trillion or 6.1% on the end of 2021. #
  4. 2023: total debt ended the year at $34.00 trillion (29 December 2023), up $2.58 trillion or 8.2% on the end of 2022. #
  5. 2024: total debt ended the year at $36.22 trillion (31 December 2024), up $2.22 trillion or 6.5% on the end of 2023. #
  6. 2025: total debt ended the year at $38.51 trillion (31 December 2025), up $2.30 trillion or 6.3% on the end of 2024. #
  7. 2026 so far: total debt rose by $2.08 trillion between 31 December 2025 and 29 October 2026, a change of 5.4%. #

Debt by federal fiscal year

  1. Fiscal year 2020 (ended 30 September): total debt reached $26.95 trillion. #
  2. Fiscal year 2021 (ended 30 September): total debt reached $28.43 trillion, up $1.48 trillion or 5.5% on a year earlier. #
  3. Fiscal year 2022 (ended 30 September): total debt reached $30.93 trillion, up $2.50 trillion or 8.8% on a year earlier. #
  4. Fiscal year 2023 (ended 30 September): total debt reached $33.17 trillion, up $2.24 trillion or 7.2% on a year earlier. #
  5. Fiscal year 2024 (ended 30 September): total debt reached $35.46 trillion, up $2.30 trillion or 6.9% on a year earlier. #
  6. Fiscal year 2025 (ended 30 September): total debt reached $37.64 trillion, up $2.17 trillion or 6.1% on a year earlier. #
  7. Fiscal year 2026 (ended 30 September): total debt reached $40.17 trillion, up $2.53 trillion or 6.7% on a year earlier. #

Trillion-dollar milestones

  1. Total debt first closed above $24 trillion on 7 April 2020. #
  2. Total debt first closed above $25 trillion on 5 May 2020. #
  3. Total debt first closed above $26 trillion on 9 June 2020. #
  4. Total debt first closed above $27 trillion on 1 October 2020. #
  5. Total debt first closed above $28 trillion on 1 March 2021. #
  6. Total debt first closed above $29 trillion on 16 December 2021. #
  7. Total debt first closed above $30 trillion on 31 January 2022. #
  8. Total debt first closed above $31 trillion on 3 October 2022. #
  9. Total debt first closed above $32 trillion on 15 June 2023. #
  10. Total debt first closed above $33 trillion on 15 September 2023. #
  11. Total debt first closed above $34 trillion on 29 December 2023. #
  12. Total debt first closed above $35 trillion on 26 July 2024. #
  13. Total debt first closed above $36 trillion on 21 November 2024. #
  14. Total debt first closed above $37 trillion on 11 August 2025. #
  15. Total debt first closed above $38 trillion on 21 October 2025. #
  16. Total debt first closed above $39 trillion on 17 March 2026. #
  17. Total debt first closed above $40 trillion on 18 August 2026. #

Largest daily moves

  1. The largest one-day rise in the series was $366.4 billion, reported for 7 July 2025. #
  2. The largest one-day fall was $91.2 billion, reported for 2 January 2026. #
  3. The most recent trillion took 154 days, from 17 March 2026 to 18 August 2026. #

Change since January 2020

  1. Total debt was $23.17 trillion on 2 January 2020, so it has risen by $17.42 trillion since then, a change of 75.2%. #
  2. Debt held by the public went from $17.16 trillion to $32.71 trillion over the same period, a change of 90.6%. #
  3. The public's share of the total moved from 74.1% in January 2020 to 80.6% on 29 October 2026. #

Download the data

The figures on this page are free to download as CSV files, built from the same Treasury data as the page and updated daily with it:

  • US national debt statistics key figures (CSV): all 46 statistics above, with the value, unit, period, full statement and a direct link to each figure.
  • US national debt by calendar year (CSV): the year-end total, debt held by the public and intragovernmental holdings, change on the previous year in dollars and percent, the highest total of the year and the fiscal-year-end total for 2020 to 2025 (6 years), in exact US dollars.

Every reported day since January 2020 is on the US national debt tracker. You may reuse these files with credit to LedgerWire and the U.S. Treasury, Bureau of the Fiscal Service and a link to this page, under CC BY 4.0.

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US national debt, 29 October 2026
$40.59 trillion
Total public debt outstanding (up $2.52 trillion on 29 October 2025). Source: LedgerWire US national debt statistics, from U.S. Treasury data.

How these figures are calculated

All figures come from the Treasury’s Debt to the Penny dataset, which reports total public debt outstanding, debt held by the public and intragovernmental holdings for each business day, usually with a one-day lag. The series used here starts on 2 January 2020.

Year-end and fiscal-year figures use the last reported day on or before 31 December or 30 September. Period changes compare the latest reported day with the last reported day on or before the start of the period. Milestones mark the first reported day the total closed above each whole trillion. Debt-limit suspensions can produce unusually large single-day moves, so daily records should be read alongside longer-run changes.

This page is refreshed daily with each Treasury release. Figures are in nominal US dollars and are not adjusted for inflation or the size of the economy.