How much does the federal government spend each year?

The federal government spent $7.4 trillion in fiscal 2026, up from $3.69 trillion in 2015. The jump to $6.55 trillion in 2020 was largely pandemic relief. Not adjusted for inflation; Treasury's API has these monthly statements from fiscal 2015.

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Key facts

Measure: Outlays in US dollars. Written from the data below.

  • The latest figure, for 2026, is $7.4T.
  • That is 2 times the 2015 figure, $3.69T.
  • It is the highest in the data, which go back to 2015.
  • The lowest was $3.69T in 2015.

This chart is one of the 50 in The U.S. in 50 charts, 2026, a yearly report of the key numbers on how the country is doing.

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Source and date

Source
U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data, Monthly Treasury Statement (Table 9)
License
Public domain (U.S. government work)
Data as of
Published

Citation

Chartly. “How much does the federal government spend 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, 2026). https://chart.ly/charts/federal-spending-by-year (accessed November 4, 2026).

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The data

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The file has the numbers in this table, with the source, license and date. Please credit the source and Chartly. Developers can also get them as JSON (how).

Fiscal year Outlays in US dollars
2015 3,687,622,059,038
2016 3,854,100,140,610
2017 3,980,605,417,586
2018 4,107,741,496,584
2019 4,446,583,636,481
2020 6,551,872,254,654
2021 6,818,157,647,017
2022 6,271,507,596,876
2023 6,134,432,040,451
2024 6,751,551,633,812
2025 7,009,973,667,049
2026 7,395,799,983,313

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