The Debt Sphere

How the Debt Sphere works

What the sphere shows

The sphere is the U.S. national debt, drawn from U.S. Department of the Treasury data. It grows and shrinks with the debt. Its gold surface is debt held by the public: money the government owes to investors outside the federal government, such as individuals, banks, mutual funds, state and local governments and foreign governments. Its blue surface is intragovernmental debt: money the government owes its own trust funds, such as Social Security and federal retirement programs. A gold shell around the sphere marks the statutory debt limit set by Congress. The shell disappears on dates when Congress had the limit suspended. The sphere's size is schematic, and the U.S. outline on it is illustrative, not data.

The large total at the top is total public debt outstanding from Treasury's Debt to the Penny. The total ticks upward at the recent pace between Treasury updates: Treasury's latest figure plus the trailing 365-day average daily change in total public debt outstanding for the time since that record date, calculated from Debt to the Penny. With reduced motion turned on in your device settings, or when only last saved data is available, it shows Treasury's figure for the latest record date instead.

Debt held by the public and intragovernmental holdings

Treasury's Debt to the Penny splits total public debt outstanding into two parts. In GENM's words: debt held by the public is what the federal government owes to lenders outside itself, whether people, businesses, banks, state and local governments, foreign governments or the Federal Reserve Banks. Intragovernmental holdings is what the government owes itself: Treasury securities kept as assets by its own accounts, chiefly trust funds such as Social Security and federal retirement programs. Source: U.S. Department of the Treasury, Debt to the Penny. The Who holds the debt chart above shows how the two have changed over Treasury's Debt to the Penny history, using Treasury's figures for each record date.

Who holds the debt worldwide

The worldwide view shows the largest foreign holders of U.S. Treasury securities from Treasury's Treasury International Capital (TIC) System, Major Foreign Holders of Treasury Securities. Treasury publishes holdings at the end of each month, in billions of dollars, about two months after the month ends, and revises earlier months, including after its annual survey of foreign holdings. The view shows the latest month Treasury has published and the countries Treasury lists that month, ranked by holdings. Foreign holdings are compared with debt held by the public on the last Debt to the Penny record date of the same month, never with total public debt and never with today's figure. Holders inside the U.S. are debt held by the public minus foreign holdings for that month; intragovernmental holdings are not part of it. TIC records holdings by the country where the securities are held in custody, which may not be the country of the ultimate owner. That is why custodial centers such as Belgium, Luxembourg, the Cayman Islands and the United Kingdom rank high. Treasury's own note on the table, quoted: "Since U.S. securities held in overseas custody accounts may not be attributed to the actual owners, the data may not provide a precise accounting of individual country ownership of Treasury securities." (Treasury's table, notes). The towers and arcs show holdings at month-end, not money moving. If the GENM data service cannot be reached, the view shows the last TIC month saved in your browser and says so.

The four readouts

• Public (GENM-002): debt held by the public, from Treasury's Debt to the Penny.
• Intragov (GENM-003): intragovernmental holdings, from Treasury's Debt to the Penny.
• Limit headroom (GENM-calculated): the statutory debt limit minus debt subject to the limit (GENM-004), both from the Debt Subject to Limit table of Treasury's Daily Treasury Statement. It is how much more the government can legally borrow. Treasury publishes these figures rounded to the nearest million dollars. When the limit is suspended, the readout says so instead of showing a number.
• Cash (GENM-005): the closing balance of the Treasury General Account at the Federal Reserve, the government's main cash account, from the Operating Cash Balance table of Treasury's Daily Treasury Statement. It has often fallen sharply during past debt limit standoffs.

Moving through time

Drag the sphere, or move the timeline slider. Dragging left shows history only: actual Treasury figures for each date, back to October 2005, marked HISTORICAL. Every readout changes to that date. Dragging right shows illustrations only, up to 10 years ahead. They extend the growth rate selected below the sphere mechanically and are marked with a red stamp: ILLUSTRATION at the historical rate, MY SCENARIO at your own rate, or SHARED SCENARIO at a rate from a shared link. Each stamp shows the rate in use and says the figures are not Treasury data. Illustrations assume the selected rate continues and that the debt limit is raised as needed. The timeline changes only the date; the growth rate slider changes only the rate. Spin to today returns to the latest Treasury figures.

How the historical rate is calculated

The sphere always opens on the historical rate: the average annual compound growth of total public debt outstanding over the Debt to the Penny history the page loads, from its first record date to its latest. Total public debt is debt held by the public plus intragovernmental holdings on each date where Treasury published both. The rate is calculated from Treasury data each time the page loads, so it moves as Treasury publishes new record dates, and it is rounded to one decimal place. That rounded rate is the one used for every figure and every label. It is the same rate as the What If Projector's Historical average on the Live Debt Clock page. It includes periods such as the 2008 financial crisis and the 2020 pandemic. Until the history loads, the sphere uses the rate from saved Treasury figures, and the line above the sphere says so with their date.

My scenario and the scorecard

Move the growth rate slider, from 0% to 15% a year, to set your own rate. As soon as the slider leaves the historical rate, the stamp and every label switch to MY SCENARIO with your exact rate, and the tool tells you when the debt would reach the current limit at that rate. Moving back to the historical rate, or Reset all, returns to ILLUSTRATION. When you let go of the slider, your rate is saved in this browser only, together with the date you set it and Treasury's Debt to the Penny total for that date. A pace saved by an earlier version of this tool in dollars a day is converted to the equivalent percent a year: one year at that pace divided by the total debt it was set against. The sphere still opens on the historical rate; when a saved scenario exists, Show my saved scenario switches to it. Reset all returns to today and the historical rate but keeps your saved scenario; Clear my scenario deletes it.

Share this moment shares or copies a link to the date and the rate you are looking at. A shared rate shows a SHARED SCENARIO stamp and never replaces the visitor's own saved scenario unless they move the slider. Save image downloads a picture of the current view with the same stamp and its source line.

The scorecard compares your saved rate with Treasury's actual figures. It uses only live Treasury data, never saved figures or a copy saved in your browser, and appears once at least 7 calendar days and 3 new Treasury record dates have passed since you set your rate. It then shows Treasury's actual growth in total public debt outstanding since that date, from Debt to the Penny, as an annualized rate, and whether your scenario is running high, running low or on track (within 10 percent). The scorecard is calculated from Treasury data.

How current the data is

Treasury updates Debt to the Penny at the end of each business day with data from the previous business day. The Daily Treasury Statement is published each business day, covering the previous business day. So the latest figures are one business day behind, and there are no weekend or holiday figures. The record dates in the source line below tell you exactly which day the figures are for. If the GENM data service cannot be reached, the tool shows the last Treasury data saved in your browser and says so.

What this tool is not

Illustrations are not forecasts. Nothing on this page is financial or investment advice. Past dates show U.S. Treasury figures for that date; future dates are illustrations, not Treasury data.