How Much Debt Does the US Have and Who Owns It?

The United States federal government owes roughly $39 trillion as of March 2026, and that debt is spread across the Federal Reserve, American banks and pension funds, foreign governments, individual investors, and the government’s own trust funds.¹ About $31.39 trillion of that total is held by outside investors. The remaining $7.62 trillion the government essentially owes itself. Answering the ownership question in full means walking through both piles.

The total works out to roughly $112,966 per person living in the United States, and it has been growing by more than $2 trillion a year.² The Congressional Budget Office projects the fiscal 2026 deficit at $1.9 trillion, which means the total will keep climbing.³ The debt is not the same as the deficit. The deficit is a single year’s shortfall. The debt is every past shortfall added up, minus the rare years of surplus, over the country’s entire history.

Debt Held by the Public vs. Intragovernmental Debt

Treasury reports the national debt in two buckets.¹

Debt held by the public, about $31.39 trillion, is money borrowed from investors outside the federal government: households, businesses, banks, state and local governments, foreign entities, and the Federal Reserve. This is the figure economists watch, because these are real financial claims against future federal revenue.

Intragovernmental holdings, about $7.62 trillion, is money the federal government owes to its own trust funds. When a fund like Social Security collects more in payroll taxes than it pays out in benefits, the surplus is invested by law in special non-marketable Treasury securities that earn a market rate of interest.⁴ The securities held by the Social Security trust funds have always been issued by the federal government.⁵

The split matters because it is about to shift. The CBO projects the Social Security Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund will be exhausted by 2032, with the combined Social Security funds running out by 2033.⁶ As those funds redeem their special Treasury securities to pay benefits, the government must borrow from public markets to cover the redemptions. Intragovernmental debt shrinks, public debt grows, and the public portion is the one that carries real financing costs.

Who Holds the Public Debt

Domestic investors own most of the $31.39 trillion in public debt. The single largest holder is the Federal Reserve, with approximately $4.38 trillion in Treasury securities as of March 2026.⁷ The Fed buys and sells Treasuries to influence interest rates and manage monetary policy. Its holdings peaked above $5.7 trillion in 2022 and have been declining as it lets maturing bonds roll off its balance sheet.

After the Fed come mutual funds, banks, state and local governments, insurance companies, and pension funds. Pension funds alone held roughly $1.16 trillion in Treasury securities at the end of 2025.⁸ For institutional investors, Treasuries serve as the low-risk anchor of a diversified portfolio. Individual Americans also hold Treasury debt directly, including through U.S. Savings Bonds, which are registered to a single owner and cannot be resold.

Foreign Holders

Foreign governments and investors held approximately $9.31 trillion in U.S. Treasury securities as of January 2026.⁹ The top five foreign holders were:

Japan: $1.23 trillion
United Kingdom: $895 billion
China: $694 billion
Belgium: $451 billion
Luxembourg: $447 billion

Japan has been the largest foreign holder for several years. China’s holdings have steadily declined from a peak above $1.3 trillion around 2013.⁹ Foreign governments buy U.S. debt mainly because Treasury securities are considered the safest and most liquid place to park foreign currency reserves. A large foreign holding is sometimes described as leverage over U.S. policy, but a sudden sell-off would damage the seller’s own reserves as much as the U.S. market, which is why it has not happened.

How Big Is $39 Trillion, Really

Raw dollar totals need context. Economists compare federal debt to gross domestic product, the country’s annual economic output. For fiscal year 2025, the gross federal debt-to-GDP ratio was approximately 124 percent, meaning the government owed about $1.24 for every dollar the economy produced.¹⁰

The only comparable moment in U.S. history was World War II, when debt held by the public peaked at 106 percent of GDP in 1946. That ratio was worked down to 23 percent by 1974 through economic growth, moderate inflation, and restrained spending. The current trajectory runs the other way. CBO projects the public-debt ratio will reach 120 percent of GDP by 2036.³

What the Debt Costs Every Year

In fiscal year 2025, the federal government spent $970 billion on net interest payments, nearly triple the interest bill of a decade earlier. For fiscal 2026, CBO projects net interest will pass $1 trillion for the first time, consuming roughly 3.3 percent of GDP, and reach 4.6 percent of GDP by 2036.¹¹ The average interest rate on outstanding marketable Treasury debt was 3.355 percent as of February 2026.¹² Applied to $31 trillion in public debt, that rate produces an interest bill larger than the annual spending of most cabinet departments. Interest is also non-negotiable: skipping it is default.

Why the Total Keeps Rising

Three forces do most of the work.

Mandatory spending programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid make up the largest share of the federal budget, and their costs rise automatically as the population ages and health care gets more expensive. Congress does not vote on these increases each year.

Tax legislation reduces revenue. The 2025 reconciliation act, which permanently extended most provisions of the 2017 tax cuts, is projected to increase cumulative deficits by $4.7 trillion over the 2026–2035 period compared with prior law.¹¹ The same law reduced mandatory spending by about $1.2 trillion through changes to Medicaid, nutrition assistance, and student loans, but the net effect still adds significantly to the debt.

Interest on existing debt has itself become a driver. As the debt grows and rates stay above their pre-2022 lows, interest costs are among the fastest-growing items in the budget, which CBO cites as a primary reason overall spending projections keep rising.¹¹

The Debt Ceiling

The statutory debt limit, codified at 31 U.S.C. 3101, caps the total amount the Treasury can borrow.¹³ It covers both public and intragovernmental debt.¹⁴ Raising the ceiling does not authorize new spending. It lets Treasury borrow to pay for spending Congress has already approved, including Social Security benefits, military salaries, and interest on existing debt.¹⁵

The limit was reinstated at $36.1 trillion on January 2, 2025, and Treasury began using extraordinary measures immediately to keep paying bills.¹⁴ In July 2025, Congress raised it by $5 trillion to $41.1 trillion through the budget reconciliation process.¹⁶ The United States has never actually defaulted, and Treasury has warned that doing so would cause catastrophic economic consequences.¹⁵

1
U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data. Debt to the Penny
2
U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee. National Debt Hits $38.43 Trillion, Increased $2.25 Trillion Year over Year, $7.23 Billion Per Day
3
Congressional Budget Office. The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2026 to 2036
4
Social Security Administration. What Are the Trust Funds
5
Social Security Administration. Investment Holdings
6
Congressional Budget Office. Social Security Trust Funds Baseline
7
Federal Reserve Economic Data. U.S. Treasury Securities Held by the Federal Reserve – All – Wednesday Level
8
Federal Reserve Economic Data. Pension Funds – Treasury Securities – Asset, Level
9
U.S. Department of the Treasury. Major Foreign Holders of Treasury Securities
10
U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data. Understanding the National Debt
11
Congressional Budget Office. The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2026 to 2036
12
U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee. National Debt Reaches $38.86 Trillion, Increased $2.64 Trillion Year over Year, $7.23 Billion Per Day
13
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 31 USC 3101 – Public Debt Limit
14
Congressional Budget Office. Federal Debt and the Statutory Limit, March 2025
15
U.S. Department of the Treasury. Debt Limit
16
Congress.gov. Debt Limit Suspensions