{"chart":{"slug":"who-owns-the-us-debt","title":"Who owns the US national debt?","takeaway":"At the end of August 2026 the federal debt was $40.2 trillion. Other U.S. investors (banks, mutual funds, pension funds, state and local governments and people) held $18.5 trillion, 46%. Foreign investors held $9.33 trillion (23%), federal trust funds such as Social Security's held $7.76 trillion (19%), and the Federal Reserve $4.55 trillion (11%). Foreign holdings are Treasury's TIC estimate, partly at market value, and the U.S. share is what's left after the others, so the split is approximate.","topic":"Federal budget","chart_type":"bar","ranking":false,"x_label":"Owner","y_label":"Debt held in US dollars","unit":"dollars","points_count":4,"source":{"name":"U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data, Debt to the Penny; U.S. Treasury, TIC Major Foreign Holders of Treasury Securities; Federal Reserve Bank of New York, SOMA Holdings","url":"https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/debt-to-the-penny/"},"license":{"name":"Treasury data public domain (U.S. government work). The SOMA Holdings data is subject to the Terms of Use posted at newyorkfed.org; the New York Fed is not responsible for publication.","url":"https://www.newyorkfed.org/privacy/termsofuse"},"data_as_of":"2026-08-31","updated_at":"2026-10-20T16:55:52.599Z","url":"https://chart.ly/charts/who-owns-the-us-debt","api_url":"https://chart.ly/api/v1/charts/who-owns-the-us-debt","csv_url":"https://chart.ly/charts/who-owns-the-us-debt/data.csv","image_url":"https://chart.ly/charts/who-owns-the-us-debt/image.png","embed_url":"https://chart.ly/charts/who-owns-the-us-debt/embed","credit":"U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data, Debt to the Penny; U.S. Treasury, TIC Major Foreign Holders of Treasury Securities; Federal Reserve Bank of New York, SOMA Holdings, via Chartly (https://chart.ly/charts/who-owns-the-us-debt)","credit_html":"U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data, Debt to the Penny; U.S. Treasury, TIC Major Foreign Holders of Treasury Securities; Federal Reserve Bank of New York, SOMA Holdings, via \u003ca href=\"https://chart.ly/charts/who-owns-the-us-debt\"\u003eChartly\u003c/a\u003e","average_label":null,"zero_axis":true,"data":[{"label":"Other U.S. investors","value":18537119939200},{"label":"Foreign investors","value":9331700000000},{"label":"Federal trust funds","value":7760652224459},{"label":"Federal Reserve","value":4546168907975}],"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, Debt to the Penny; U.S. Treasury, TIC Major Foreign Holders of Treasury Securities; Federal Reserve Bank of New York, SOMA Holdings, via Chartly (https://chart.ly/charts/who-owns-the-us-debt)"}