National Debt by President, Carter to Trump

The method: fiscal years, not inauguration days

The federal fiscal year runs from 1 October to 30 September. A president who takes office on 20 January inherits a fiscal year that is already four months old and was budgeted by the previous administration. The first budget a new president proposes covers the fiscal year that starts the following October.

So this guide assigns each president the fiscal years that began during the term:

• Start: total public debt outstanding on 30 September of the year the president took office, the end of the predecessor's last fiscal year.
• End: total public debt outstanding on 30 September of the year the president left office.

Ronald Reagan, for example, is measured from the end of fiscal 1981 to the end of fiscal 1989. The dollar figures come from Treasury's Historical Debt Outstanding dataset. The shares of GDP come from OMB Historical Table 7.1, which divides gross federal debt by GDP for the same fiscal year. OMB's gross debt differs slightly from Treasury's total, so the two tables are not meant to be mixed.

Total public debt includes the $7.85 trillion (23 October 2026) the Treasury owes its own trust funds, such as Social Security, and other government accounts. That matters for one term in particular, as the next sections show.

Debt added in each presidential term

Debt at the end of each fiscal year (30 September), from Treasury's Historical Debt Outstanding dataset. Added amounts are computed from unrounded figures. The terms laid end to end account for the full rise from $1.00 trillion in September 1981 to $40.17 trillion in September 2026. Fiscal years counted: Carter 1978 to 1981, Reagan 1982 to 1989, George H. W. Bush 1990 to 1993, Clinton 1994 to 2001, George W. Bush 2002 to 2009, Obama 2010 to 2017, Trump 2018 to 2021, Biden 2022 to 2025, and Trump's second term 2026 so far.

Terms differ in length, and a dollar in 1985 bought far more than a dollar in 2025, so the same figures are shown below as growth rates and as a share of the economy.

"Per year" is the compound annual growth rate of total debt over the term. The GDP shares are OMB's, for the fiscal years at the start and end of each term; the change is in percentage points. OMB has not yet published a fiscal 2026 ratio. A fiscal-year GDP figure for 2026 needs third-quarter GDP, which the Bureau of Economic Analysis is scheduled to release on 29 October 2026. Our debt-to-GDP guide has the latest quarterly figure.

Three ways to read the same numbers

Dollars favour early presidents. Each of the four full terms from fiscal 2002 to 2025 added more than $6 trillion, more than the entire debt at the end of fiscal 2001 ($5.81 trillion), partly because the economy, prices and the debt itself were all far larger. Interest on a larger debt also adds more dollars each year regardless of new policy.

Percent favours late presidents, for the opposite reason. Reagan's 186% increase was on a $1.00 trillion base. Biden's 32% was on a $28.43 trillion base.

Share of GDP adjusts for the size of the economy and for inflation, which makes it the closest thing to a like-for-like comparison. On that measure, gross federal debt rose in five of the eight completed terms since 1977 and fell in two: under Carter, from 34.9% to 31.8% of GDP, and under Clinton, from 64.2% to 54.8%. Under Biden it was almost unchanged, from 123.2% to 123.3%, because nominal GDP grew 31.6% between fiscal 2021 and fiscal 2025, roughly as fast as the debt.

The choice of debt measure matters too. During Clinton's fiscal years, total debt rose $1.40 trillion, but debt held by the public, which excludes the trust funds, rose only $71 billion, according to OMB Table 7.1. Debt held by the public fell in each of fiscal 1998 to 2001, by a combined $453 billion, as the budget ran surpluses. Total debt kept rising because federal trust funds, led by Social Security, were running surpluses that by law are invested in special Treasury securities. Debt held by government accounts rose from $1.10 trillion to $2.45 trillion over Clinton's fiscal years.

Why attribution to presidents is imperfect

The tables apply one rule to everyone. The rule is a simplification, and every term would look different under another reasonable one.

• Congress writes the laws. Taxes and spending are set by legislation that Congress passes and the president signs or vetoes.
• Budgets outlast administrations. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid run on formulas set by laws passed decades earlier. Social Security and Medicare alone were $2.74 trillion, 37% of federal outlays, in fiscal 2026. Tax laws often phase in or expire years after the president who signed them has left.
• Recessions and emergencies. Revenue falls and spending on unemployment insurance and other support rises automatically in a downturn. Large borrowing years line up with the 2008 to 2009 financial crisis and the 2020 pandemic, both of which spanned a change of president.
• Wars. Military spending decisions run across administrations and Congresses.
• Interest on inherited debt. Net interest was $1.05 trillion in fiscal 2026. Most of that is the cost of debt that earlier administrations and Congresses borrowed, at rates set in the market and influenced by the Federal Reserve.
• The handover year. The fiscal year in which a president takes office is credited to the predecessor here. Fiscal 2009, which began in October 2008 and ran through the first eight months of the Obama administration, added $1.89 trillion and is counted under George W. Bush.

Switching to inauguration days shows how much the method matters. Using Treasury's Debt to the Penny on the last business day on or before each inauguration, the George W. Bush figure drops to $4.90 trillion and the Obama figure rises to $9.32 trillion. Trump's first term becomes $7.80 trillion and Biden's $8.45 trillion. The 2025 starting point is distorted by the debt limit, which held debt subject to the limit at about $36.1 trillion from January to early July 2025; see our debt ceiling guide.

The second Trump term so far

Fiscal 2026, which ran from October 2025 to September 2026, is the first fiscal year that began during Donald Trump's second term. Total debt rose from $37.64 trillion to $40.17 trillion over that year, an increase of $2.53 trillion or 6.7%. On an inauguration-day basis, debt rose $4.26 trillion from 17 January 2025, the last business day before the inauguration, to $40.46 trillion on 23 October 2026.

The fiscal 2026 deficit was $1.99 trillion: outlays of $7.40 trillion against receipts of $5.40 trillion, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement. Debt rose more than the deficit because trust fund balances and federal lending also add to the total; the budget deficit guide explains the gap.

The figures for this term will change with every month of data. The national debt clock tracks the running total from Treasury's daily figures.