How big is the federal deficit each year?
The government spent $1.78 trillion more than it collected in fiscal 2025. The gap peaked at $3.13 trillion in 2020, during the pandemic, and has stayed above $1.3 trillion since. The deficit is spending minus revenue, not adjusted for inflation; Treasury's API has these statements from fiscal 2015.
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Key facts
Measure: Deficit in US dollars. Written from the data below.
- The latest figure, for 2025, is $1.78T.
- That is 4 times the 2015 figure, $439B.
- The highest was $3.13T in 2020.
- The lowest was $439B in 2015.
Source and date
- Data as of
- Published
Citation
Chartly. “How big is the federal deficit each year?” Chart. Data: U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data, Monthly Treasury Statement (Table 9), https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/monthly-treasury-statement/ (data as of September 30, 2025). https://chart.ly/charts/federal-deficit-by-year (accessed October 15, 2026).
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The data
Download data (CSV)The file has the numbers in this table, with the source, license and date. Please credit the source and Chartly.
| Fiscal year | Deficit in US dollars |
|---|---|
| 2015 | 438,898,858,122 |
| 2016 | 587,411,769,637 |
| 2017 | 665,711,513,062 |
| 2018 | 778,996,251,866 |
| 2019 | 984,388,026,332 |
| 2020 | 3,131,917,248,889 |
| 2021 | 2,772,178,788,290 |
| 2022 | 1,375,388,552,955 |
| 2023 | 1,695,148,300,530 |
| 2024 | 1,832,815,989,074 |
| 2025 | 1,775,357,280,734 |
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