Measured by broad category, domestic American investors and institutions own the most US Treasury bonds, holding roughly $19.9 trillion of federal debt as of early 2025. Foreign holders come next at about $9.1 trillion, the Federal Reserve holds around $4.4 trillion, and the federal government owes itself about $7.3 trillion through trust funds like Social Security. If you narrow the question to a single country, Japan is the largest foreign holder at approximately $1.23 trillion. If you narrow it to a single fund or account, the Social Security Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund tops the list at roughly $2.5 trillion.
Domestic Investors Hold the Largest Share
American households, funds, and financial institutions collectively own more Treasury debt than any other category. As of early 2025, domestic entities held about $19.9 trillion in federal debt, with institutional investors alone accounting for an estimated $8.4 trillion of that.
The category is broad on purpose. It includes mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, money market funds, commercial banks, pension funds, insurance companies, state and local governments, and individual households. Each type of holder gravitates toward a different part of the yield curve. Money market funds buy short-term Treasury bills in enormous volumes, often hundreds of billions at a time. Pension funds and insurance companies prefer longer-dated notes and bonds because the predictable interest payments match their long-term liabilities. Commercial banks hold Treasuries in part because banking regulators treat them as high-quality liquid assets under the liquidity coverage ratio, letting banks count them toward the reserves they need to survive a 30-day funding stress.1Congressional Research Service. Financial Reform – Muni Bonds and the LCR
Individual Americans hold a slice of the total directly. They can buy savings bonds and marketable Treasuries through TreasuryDirect, the government’s online platform.2TreasuryDirect. TreasuryDirect Series I and Series EE savings bonds are capped at $10,000 per person per calendar year.3TreasuryDirect. About U.S. Savings Bonds
Foreign Holders and the Country Rankings
Foreign governments, central banks, and private investors together owned about $9.1 trillion in Treasury securities as of mid-2025, roughly 32 percent of all debt held by the public. The Treasury tracks these holdings through its Treasury International Capital reporting system.4U.S. Department of the Treasury. Treasury International Capital (TIC) System
Japan is the largest foreign holder at approximately $1.23 trillion as of January 2026. The United Kingdom ranks second at roughly $927 billion, a figure that partly reflects London’s role as a global financial hub where many international investors custody their assets. China, once the largest foreign holder, has steadily reduced its position over the past decade and held about $694 billion as of the same date.5U.S. Department of the Treasury. Major Foreign Holders of Treasury Securities
Foreign central banks buy Treasuries mainly to manage currency reserves and stabilize exchange rates. When a country runs a trade surplus with the United States, its central bank often parks the resulting dollar inflows in Treasuries because they trade in the deepest, most liquid market in the world. Private foreign investors, including commercial banks and asset managers, buy them for the same reasons domestic investors do: safety and liquidity.
The Federal Reserve
The Federal Reserve held approximately $4.37 trillion in Treasury securities as of late March 2026, making it one of the largest single holders of government debt anywhere.6Federal Reserve. Factors Affecting Reserve Balances – H.4.1 That portfolio breaks down into about $3.6 trillion in nominal notes and bonds, $374 billion in bills, and $289 billion in inflation-indexed securities.
The Fed doesn’t buy this debt directly at Treasury auctions. It purchases securities on the secondary market as a tool of monetary policy, expanding or shrinking its balance sheet to adjust interest rates and the money supply. The buildup happened primarily during multiple rounds of large-scale asset purchases following the 2008 financial crisis and again during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the portfolio peaked above $5.7 trillion. Since mid-2022, the Fed has been letting securities mature without reinvesting the proceeds, gradually reducing its holdings.
Historically, the Fed earned interest on its Treasury portfolio and returned most of its net income to the Treasury Department, with those remittances running between $50 billion and $100 billion a year. That arrangement has been disrupted. Because the Fed raised short-term rates aggressively starting in 2022, the interest it pays on bank reserves and reverse repos now exceeds what it earns on its older, lower-yielding Treasuries. As of September 2025, the Fed reported a cumulative deferred asset of $242 billion, reflecting accumulated losses that must be recovered before normal remittances resume.7Federal Reserve. Federal Reserve Balance Sheet Developments
The Government Owes Itself About $7.3 Trillion
Roughly $7.3 trillion of the national debt consists of securities the government owes to its own trust funds and internal accounts. These are non-marketable, meaning they can’t be sold on the open market. They exist as accounting entries backed by the full faith and credit of the United States. Total borrowing authority for all Treasury securities, marketable and non-marketable alike, flows from Chapter 31 of Title 31 of the United States Code.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 31 USC Chapter 31 – Public Debt
The biggest single piece is the Social Security Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund, which held roughly $2.5 trillion at the end of 2024, accounting for about a third of all intragovernmental debt.9Social Security Administration. Trustees Report Summary The companion Disability Insurance Trust Fund held an additional $183 billion. Section 201 of the Social Security Act requires the Managing Trustee to invest any surplus not needed for current benefit payments in interest-bearing obligations of the United States.10Social Security Administration. Social Security Act Section 201
Other federal programs contribute to intragovernmental holdings as well, including the Military Retirement Fund, the Office of Personnel Management retirement funds, the Medicare trust funds, and the Highway Trust Fund. The mechanism is the same across all of them: when a program collects more in taxes or premiums than it pays out in benefits, the surplus is invested in special Treasury securities.
Why the Ownership Mix Keeps Shifting
None of these ownership shares hold still. The Treasury issues new debt on a regular schedule, with bills auctioned weekly and notes, bonds, and inflation-protected securities auctioned monthly, and trillions of dollars in outstanding securities change hands every week on the secondary market.11U.S. Department of the Treasury. Tentative Auction Schedule of U.S. Treasury Securities
Three trends are worth watching. The Federal Reserve’s portfolio is shrinking as securities mature without being replaced. China’s foreign holdings have been declining for years, while Japan’s have remained the largest. And intragovernmental holdings are set to decline as a share of the total as Social Security runs persistent deficits and its trust fund balance falls rather than grows. Roughly 80 percent of the gross debt is currently held by the public and about 20 percent is intragovernmental, but that split will keep drifting as retirement of the baby boomer generation continues to draw down federal trust funds.