Total Public Debt Record

How the Total Public Debt Record works

What Debt to the Penny is

Debt to the Penny is the U.S. Department of the Treasury's daily record of the federal government's total public debt outstanding, published on Treasury's Fiscal Data site. Treasury updates it at the end of each business day with data from the previous business day, so the latest official figure is one business day behind. No figures are published for weekends or federal holidays. The record date shown on this page is the day Treasury's figure describes.

How the pace is calculated

The pace is the trailing 365-day average daily change in total public debt outstanding: Treasury's latest Debt to the Penny figure minus its figure from about 365 calendar days earlier, divided by the number of calendar days between the two dates. It is calculated from Treasury data, and the page shows the exact dates it covers.

Public and intragovernmental holdings

Total public debt outstanding has two parts. Debt held by the public is money the government owes to investors outside the federal government, such as individuals, banks, mutual funds, state and local governments and foreign governments. Intragovernmental holdings are money the government owes its own trust funds, such as Social Security and federal retirement programs. Both are Treasury's official Debt to the Penny figures for the latest record date.

The debt limit

Limit headroom is the statutory debt limit set by Congress minus debt subject to the limit, both from the Debt Subject to Limit table of Treasury's Daily Treasury Statement, calculated from those Treasury figures. When Congress has suspended the limit, the page says so instead of showing a number.

If the data cannot load

If the GENM data service cannot be reached, the page shows the last Treasury data saved in your browser, labeled "last saved".

Interest costs

The Interest costs section shows the average interest rates the U.S. Department of the Treasury publishes each month for its outstanding marketable securities, here for bills, notes, bonds and Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS). Each rate is shown as Treasury publishes it, to three decimals, with its record date. GENM does not add or average rates. Treasury's single TIPS rate starts in October 2004; the earlier separate rates for inflation-indexed notes and bonds are not combined.

Where the borrowing comes from

The Where the borrowing comes from section shows figures from Treasury's Monthly Treasury Statement: total receipts, total outlays, the difference between them (the monthly deficit or surplus) and selected receipts and outlays. Each month is shown as first published in that month's statement, so every figure in a month traces to a single statement. Treasury may revise a month in later statements. A deficit is shown as "Deficit of" and an amount, a surplus as "Surplus of" and an amount. Social insurance and retirement receipts are three of Treasury's receipt lines added together, calculated from Treasury data.

What this tool is not

Nothing on this page is financial or investment advice. Treasury's official figures are labeled as Treasury's; every other figure is calculated from Treasury data.