What interest rate does the US government pay on its debt?

The average interest rate on all federal debt was 3.53% at the end of fiscal 2026, compared with a low of 1.61% in 2021 and 6.06% in 2001, when this Treasury series begins.

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Key facts

Measure: Average interest rate (%). Written from the data below.

  • The latest figure, for 2026, is 3.5%.
  • That is down 2.5 percentage points from 6.1% in 2001.
  • The highest was 6.1% in 2001.
  • The lowest was 1.6% in 2021.

The bigger picture, in plain words: Is the national debt growing faster than the economy?

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Source and date

Source
U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data, Average Interest Rates on U.S. Treasury Securities
License
Public domain (U.S. government work)
Data as of
Published

Citation

Chartly. “What interest rate does the US government pay on its debt?” Chart. Data: U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data, Average Interest Rates on U.S. Treasury Securities, https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/average-interest-rates-treasury-securities/ (data as of September 30, 2026). https://chart.ly/charts/interest-rate-on-us-debt (accessed November 5, 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 Average interest rate (%)
2001 6.064
2002 5.298
2003 4.654
2004 4.517
2005 4.704
2006 5.022
2007 5.009
2008 4.188
2009 3.347
2010 3.052
2011 2.886
2012 2.588
2013 2.43
2014 2.401
2015 2.35
2016 2.232
2017 2.284
2018 2.494
2019 2.492
2020 1.772
2021 1.605
2022 2.07
2023 2.97
2024 3.324
2025 3.363
2026 3.531

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