How much federal debt is there per American?

In fiscal 2025 the federal debt came to about $110,100 for every person in the US, up from $33,000 in 2008 and $1,585 in 1960. It is the debt at the end of each fiscal year divided by the World Bank's mid-year population estimate, not adjusted for inflation. It starts in 1960, the first year of the World Bank's population figures.

The interactive chart needs JavaScript. The numbers are in the table below.

The value axis starts at zero. Hover, tap or use the arrow keys to read exact values.

Save a simple drawing of this chart for slides, essays or posts, with its question, source, date and a link back to this page. Please keep the credit.

Download image

Key facts

Measure: Debt per person in US dollars. Written from the data below.

  • The latest figure, for 2025, is $110,121.
  • That is 69 times the 1960 figure, $1,585.
  • It is the highest in the data, which go back to 1960.
  • The lowest was $1,573 in 1961.

Source and date

Source
U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data, Historical Debt Outstanding; population from the World Bank (SP.POP.TOTL)
License
Debt data public domain (U.S. government work); World Bank population data CC BY 4.0
Data as of
Published

Citation

Chartly. “How much federal debt is there per American?” Chart. Data: U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data, Historical Debt Outstanding; population from the World Bank (SP.POP.TOTL), https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/historical-debt-outstanding/ (data as of September 30, 2025). https://chart.ly/charts/us-debt-per-person (accessed October 15, 2026).

Free for your article, blog or class page: paste this code where the chart should go. It shows the interactive chart with its source and a small “Chart by Chartly” credit, and stays up to date when the data changes.

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 Debt per person in US dollars
1960 1,585
1961 1,573
1962 1,599
1963 1,616
1964 1,624
1965 1,633
1966 1,628
1967 1,642
1968 1,732
1969 1,745
1970 1,809
1971 1,917
1972 2,036
1973 2,162
1974 2,221
1975 2,469
1976 2,846
1977 3,173
1978 3,466
1979 3,673
1980 3,995
1981 4,349
1982 4,930
1983 5,891
1984 6,667
1985 7,663
1986 8,851
1987 9,700
1988 10,644
1989 11,577
1990 12,953
1991 14,488
1992 15,846
1993 16,973
1994 17,835
1995 18,680
1996 19,395
1997 19,853
1998 20,033
1999 20,270
2000 20,110
2001 20,379
2002 21,654
2003 23,382
2004 25,201
2005 26,844
2006 28,511
2007 29,903
2008 32,966
2009 38,823
2010 43,835
2011 47,429
2012 51,111
2013 52,847
2014 55,830
2015 56,401
2016 60,346
2017 61,985
2018 65,492
2019 68,800
2020 81,264
2021 85,603
2022 92,603
2023 98,491
2024 104,307
2025 110,121

Get new charts weekly

One email a week with the newest charts and their key numbers. No account needed.