{"chart":{"slug":"federal-deficit-by-year","title":"How big is the federal deficit each year?","takeaway":"The government spent $1.99 trillion more than it collected in fiscal 2026. The gap reached $3.13 trillion in 2020, during the pandemic. The deficit is spending minus revenue, not adjusted for inflation; Treasury's API has these statements from fiscal 2015.","topic":"Federal budget","chart_type":"bar","ranking":false,"x_label":"Fiscal year","y_label":"Deficit in US dollars","unit":"dollars","points_count":12,"source":{"name":"U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data, Monthly Treasury Statement (Table 9)","url":"https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/monthly-treasury-statement/"},"license":{"name":"Public domain (U.S. government work)","url":"https://www.usa.gov/government-copyright"},"data_as_of":"2026-09-30","updated_at":"2026-10-17T18:50:40.955Z","url":"https://chart.ly/charts/federal-deficit-by-year","api_url":"https://chart.ly/api/v1/charts/federal-deficit-by-year","csv_url":"https://chart.ly/charts/federal-deficit-by-year/data.csv","image_url":"https://chart.ly/charts/federal-deficit-by-year/image.png","embed_url":"https://chart.ly/charts/federal-deficit-by-year/embed","credit":"U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data, Monthly Treasury Statement (Table 9), via Chartly (https://chart.ly/charts/federal-deficit-by-year)","credit_html":"U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data, Monthly Treasury Statement (Table 9), via \u003ca href=\"https://chart.ly/charts/federal-deficit-by-year\"\u003eChartly\u003c/a\u003e","average_label":null,"zero_axis":true,"data":[{"label":"2015","value":438898858122},{"label":"2016","value":587411769637},{"label":"2017","value":665711513062},{"label":"2018","value":778996251866},{"label":"2019","value":984388026332},{"label":"2020","value":3131917248889},{"label":"2021","value":2772178788290},{"label":"2022","value":1375388552955},{"label":"2023","value":1695148300530},{"label":"2024","value":1832815989074},{"label":"2025","value":1775357280734},{"label":"2026","value":1992473224352}],"annotations":[]},"docs":"https://chart.ly/developers","terms":"Free to use with credit: wherever you show or quote a chart's data, name Chartly with a link to that chart's url (each chart's credit line does both) and credit its source as its license asks.","credit":"U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data, Monthly Treasury Statement (Table 9), via Chartly (https://chart.ly/charts/federal-deficit-by-year)"}