{"chart":{"slug":"federal-interest-cost","title":"How much does the US government pay in interest each year?","takeaway":"The government spent $1.36 trillion on interest in fiscal 2026, 3.3 times the $414 billion of 2010, as both the debt and interest rates rose. This counts interest on all federal debt, including debt held by trust funds such as Social Security, so it is higher than the budget's \"net interest\". Not adjusted for inflation; this Treasury dataset starts in fiscal 2010.","topic":"Federal budget","chart_type":"bar","ranking":false,"x_label":"Fiscal year","y_label":"Interest in US dollars","unit":"dollars","points_count":17,"source":{"name":"U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data, Interest Expense on the Public Debt Outstanding","url":"https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/interest-expense-debt-outstanding/"},"license":{"name":"Public domain (U.S. government work)","url":"https://www.usa.gov/government-copyright"},"data_as_of":"2026-09-30","updated_at":"2026-10-17T18:50:40.964Z","url":"https://chart.ly/charts/federal-interest-cost","api_url":"https://chart.ly/api/v1/charts/federal-interest-cost","csv_url":"https://chart.ly/charts/federal-interest-cost/data.csv","image_url":"https://chart.ly/charts/federal-interest-cost/image.png","embed_url":"https://chart.ly/charts/federal-interest-cost/embed","credit":"U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data, Interest Expense on the Public Debt Outstanding, via Chartly (https://chart.ly/charts/federal-interest-cost)","credit_html":"U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data, Interest Expense on the Public Debt Outstanding, via \u003ca href=\"https://chart.ly/charts/federal-interest-cost\"\u003eChartly\u003c/a\u003e","average_label":null,"zero_axis":true,"data":[{"label":"2010","value":413954825362},{"label":"2011","value":454393280417},{"label":"2012","value":359796008919},{"label":"2013","value":415688781248},{"label":"2014","value":430812121372},{"label":"2015","value":402435356075},{"label":"2016","value":432649652901},{"label":"2017","value":458542287312},{"label":"2018","value":523017301446},{"label":"2019","value":574587783464},{"label":"2020","value":522767299265},{"label":"2021","value":562388232682},{"label":"2022","value":718745810097},{"label":"2023","value":882598268533},{"label":"2024","value":1133036890149},{"label":"2025","value":1220025282630},{"label":"2026","value":1360396866366}],"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, Interest Expense on the Public Debt Outstanding, via Chartly (https://chart.ly/charts/federal-interest-cost)"}