Who Owns US Treasury Debt? Holders, Interest Cost and Why It Matters

If you count the debt the government owes to itself, about a fifth of it belongs to federal trust funds; the traded rest is spread across foreign investors, the Federal Reserve, US funds, households, banks, state and local governments and pension funds, with no single holder close to a majority. Total federal debt was $40.44 trillion on October 22, 2026. Of that, $32.60 trillion was held by the public and $7.85 trillion was intragovernmental (Treasury, Debt to the Penny).

The intragovernmental part is special, non-traded debt held by government accounts. On September 30, 2026 the Social Security trust funds held $2.44 trillion and the Military Retirement Fund $2.12 trillion of the $7.73 trillion in federal accounts (Monthly Treasury Statement, schedule D). “Held by the public” means everyone else, and it includes the Federal Reserve. Most of it is marketable Treasuries, $31.83 trillion on September 30, 2026, which can be bought and sold; the rest is savings bonds and other non-traded securities.

Scope. US federal debt and who holds it, as of October 26, 2026, with interest costs for fiscal years 2020 to 2026. It does not cover state, municipal or corporate debt, or whether to buy Treasuries; the market mechanics are in how the bond market works. Education, not advice.

The only source that assigns every marketable Treasury to a holder is the Federal Reserve’s Financial Accounts of the United States (table F.3.2, formerly L.210). Its latest edition, released September 11, 2026, covers June 30, 2026 (Federal Reserve, Z.1). Most holdings are recorded at market value while the debt is counted at face value, so the holder total ($29.01 trillion) is below the $30.88 trillion of marketable debt; the Fed books the $1.86 trillion gap as an instrument discrepancy. Shares below are of the $29.01 trillion.

Two shifts stand out against the end of 2019 in the same table. Foreign investors held $6.92 trillion of $16.63 trillion then, 42% of marketable debt at face value, against 30% in mid-2026, even though their holdings grew by $2.35 trillion; the debt grew faster. Money market funds went from 7% to 11%, mostly by buying bills. The newer readings in the table come from different releases: the Fed’s weekly report counts its $4.57 trillion at face value on October 21, 2026, including $568 billion of bills, up about $371 billion from a year earlier (Federal Reserve, H.4.1).

Japan, the United Kingdom and mainland China, in that order. Treasury’s monthly survey put all foreign holdings at $9.33 trillion in August 2026, of which $3.76 trillion was held by official institutions such as central banks (Treasury International Capital, table 5).

Read the country rows with care. The survey is collected mostly from US custodians and brokers, and Treasury notes that securities held through overseas custody accounts may not be attributed to their real owners. That is why financial centers such as the UK, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Cayman Islands rank high: they often show where bonds are held in custody or by funds based there, not whose savings they are. How money moves across borders is covered in how money moves between countries, and what a weaker or stronger dollar does to a portfolio in dollar exposure.

Yes, in fiscal 2026 (October 2025 to September 2026) net interest was $1,051.8 billion, against $965.2 billion of national defense outlays and $723.0 billion of federal Medicaid grants to states (Monthly Treasury Statement, September 2026). It was also above defense in fiscal 2024 and 2025. It was still below Medicare ($1,072.6 billion, net of premiums) and Social Security ($1,667.1 billion). Net interest equaled about 19% of the year’s $5,403.3 billion of receipts and 14% of its $7,395.8 billion of outlays.

Two interest figures circulate, and both are real. Gross interest on Treasury securities was $1,360.0 billion in fiscal 2026; it includes interest the Treasury pays to its own trust funds. Net interest removes that internal payment and other offsets, so it is the better measure of what the government pays to outside lenders. A “$1.1 trillion in 2024” figure matches gross interest ($1,133.0 billion); net interest that year was $881.0 billion.

The debt itself grew $2.53 trillion over fiscal 2026, about $6.9 billion a day, and $2.45 trillion over the 12 months to October 22, 2026, about $6.7 billion a day. It first closed above $39 trillion on March 17, 2026 and above $40 trillion on August 18, 2026. The increase is larger than the $1.99 trillion fiscal 2026 deficit because trust-fund investments and other cash needs also add to debt.

The cost depends on the average rate on the debt and on how quickly it rolls over. The average rate on all marketable Treasuries was 3.518% on September 30, 2026, with bills at 3.870% (Treasury, Average Interest Rates). Bills, which mature within a year, were $7.12 trillion, or 22.4% of the $31.83 trillion of marketable debt (Monthly Statement of the Public Debt). Simplified arithmetic, ignoring inflation adjustments on TIPS, discounts and new borrowing:

The same lag works in reverse: the average rate climbed from 1.424% in January 2022 to 3.518% in September 2026 only gradually, because low-coupon notes issued before 2022 are still being replaced. Bill rates track the Fed’s target range, 3.75%–4.00% (raised on September 16, 2026, held on October 28) ; longer yields are set in the market. More on both in Treasury yields, the fed funds rate and how the Fed sets interest rates.

They are a growing buyer of bills, but one among many. Tether reported $114.96 billion of Treasury bills on June 30, 2026 (BDO assurance report). In Treasury’s country survey for the same month the United Arab Emirates held $114.8 billion, and 18 listed holders held more. So the largest issuer alone is about the size of a mid-sized foreign holder, and its bills were about 1.7% of the $6.69 trillion of bills outstanding on that date. Treasury’s borrowing advisory committee put all stablecoin issuers below 1% of Treasuries outstanding, using September 30, 2025 data (TBAC, Feb 2026). The comparison is rough: the country figures include notes and bonds, and an issuer’s holdings may itself sit inside a country row, because neither survey has a stablecoin line.

The reserve rule is what links the two. From January 18, 2027, the GENIUS Act requires US-permitted issuers to back each coin with at least $1 of cash, deposits, Treasuries maturing in 93 days or less, overnight repo or government money funds (Public Law 119-27). Coin growth can increase demand for short bills, depending on issuers’ choices among permitted reserve assets. It is not automatic new money for the Treasury, though: the dollars come from deposits or money funds that may have bought bills anyway, and if holders redeem, issuers let bills mature or sell them. Reserve details, yield research and a run example are in stablecoins and Treasury bills; the rule set in the GENIUS Act explained; funds that pass bill yields to holders in tokenized Treasuries.

Because each new dollar of debt needs a buyer, and buyers differ in how much yield it takes to attract them. Some hold Treasuries for reasons other than price: central banks managing reserves, money funds and stablecoin issuers that are required to hold safe short assets, banks meeting liquidity rules, pension funds matching long promises. Others, such as households, hedge funds and many asset managers, buy when the yield is attractive against other options. When a steady holder shrinks, as foreign official holdings did by $164 billion in the year to August 2026, the debt must be absorbed by more price-sensitive buyers, which can take a higher yield.

Maturity matters too. Money funds and stablecoin issuers buy bills, so they help Treasury fund itself at the short end, while the yield on 10- and 30-year bonds depends more on investors who weigh inflation, growth and how much long debt is coming. A higher bill share lowers the cost when short rates are below long rates but makes the interest bill react faster when short rates rise, the trade-off in the worked example above. This page describes mechanics; it does not forecast yields. How Treasuries behave in a portfolio is in bonds as a hedge.

Counterexample: “foreign countries are dumping US debt.” The data say something narrower. Total foreign holdings rose $82.6 billion in the year to August 2026 and stood at $9.33 trillion; what fell was the official part (−$164.2 billion) and some single countries such as mainland China (−$109.0 billion), while UK-based holdings rose $108.2 billion. Because of custody effects, a fall in one country can be a move of the same bonds to an account in another. The foreign share is lower than in 2019 mainly because the debt grew faster than foreign buying.

Sources for the fiscal figures and holder definitions: Monthly Treasury Statement; Federal Reserve Financial Accounts Guide. The wider map of how Treasuries connect to banks, money funds and the Fed is in how the financial system works.