Who Owns US Debt: Holders by Type and Country

Two kinds of owner: the government itself and everyone else

Treasury splits the national debt into two parts. On 23 October 2026, total public debt outstanding was $40.46 trillion, according to Treasury's Debt to the Penny series:

• Intragovernmental holdings: $7.85 trillion. Special non-marketable securities that the Treasury issues to federal trust funds and other government accounts. They cannot be sold to anyone else.
• Debt held by the public: $32.61 trillion. Everything owned outside the federal government, which includes the Federal Reserve, foreign investors, funds, banks, state and local governments and individuals.

Trust fund holdings at the end of fiscal 2026 (30 September 2026), from the Monthly Treasury Statement:

This internal debt matters when a fund draws on it. When Social Security redeems its bonds to pay benefits, the Treasury has to raise that cash from taxes or from new borrowing in the market. Until then, CBO notes, debt held by government accounts does not directly affect the economy and has no net effect on the budget.

The full ownership breakdown

Treasury's most recent complete owner-by-owner estimate is for 31 March 2026. It was published in the September 2026 Treasury Bulletin and draws mainly on the Federal Reserve's Flow of Funds data. Treasury reports the Federal Reserve and government accounts as one figure, $12.02 trillion; we split out the Fed's share by subtracting Treasury's intragovernmental total for the same date.

Measured against debt held by the public, which was $31.43 trillion that day, foreign investors held 29.8%, mutual funds 16.3% and the Federal Reserve 14.0%. CBO's February 2026 report gives a similar picture for 30 September 2025: about 70% of debt held by the public was owned domestically and about 30% abroad.

"Other investors" is a residual. Treasury's footnote says it includes individuals, government-sponsored enterprises, brokers and dealers, bank personal trusts and estates, and corporate and non-corporate businesses. It grew by $422 billion in the six months to March 2026, more than any other category in the table.

Foreign holders by country

Foreign investors held $9.33 trillion of Treasury securities at the end of August 2026, according to Treasury International Capital (TIC) data. Of that, $3.76 trillion, about 40%, belonged to foreign official institutions such as central banks.

Three points stand out in the year to August 2026:

• Japan is still the largest holder, but its holdings fell by $116 billion to $1.07 trillion.
• The UK, at $1.01 trillion, is now within $59 billion of Japan, after adding $108 billion.
• Mainland China's holdings fell by $109 billion to $591 billion, the lowest of the thirteen months shown in Treasury's table.

Read the country figures with care. TIC data come mainly from US custodians and broker-dealers, and Treasury notes that securities held in overseas custody accounts may not be attributed to their actual owners. That is why custody and fund centres such as Belgium, Luxembourg, the Cayman Islands and the UK rank so high.

The bigger shift is in share. Total foreign holdings grew by $83 billion over the twelve months, while debt held by the public grew by $2.45 trillion, from $29.97 trillion to $32.41 trillion. Foreign investors therefore absorbed only about 3% of the year's net new borrowing, and their share of debt held by the public slipped to about 29%.

The Federal Reserve

The Fed held $4.57 trillion of Treasury securities on 21 October 2026, according to its weekly H.4.1 balance sheet release. That is about 14% of debt held by the public, the same share CBO projects for 2026.

• Nominal notes and bonds: $3.62 trillion
• Treasury bills: $568 billion
• Inflation-protected securities: $278 billion, plus $106 billion of accrued inflation compensation

The mix is changing. In the year to the week ended 21 October 2026, the Fed's average holdings of Treasury securities rose by $375 billion, and almost all of that increase, $371 billion, was in bills. Over the same period its mortgage-backed securities fell by $187 billion. CBO's baseline has the Fed's share of debt held by the public rising from 14% in 2026 to 17% in 2036.

The Fed also takes part in Treasury auctions, but outside the announced size. At the 26 October 2026 two-year note auction, its System Open Market Account received $7.67 billion as a non-competitive add-on on top of the $69 billion offered to the public. Our guide to how Treasury auctions work covers the bidder categories in detail.

Funds, banks, pensions and insurers

Mutual funds are the largest domestic private holder that Treasury identifies by type, at $5.12 trillion on 31 March 2026. Treasury's category includes money market funds, conventional mutual funds and closed-end funds. It rose by $254 billion between September 2025 and March 2026.

Depository institutions held $2.17 trillion. Treasury's definition covers US-chartered banks, foreign banking offices in the US, credit unions and bank holding companies.

Pension funds and insurers, whose obligations run for decades, hold far less: private pension funds $607 billion, state and local government pension funds $574 billion, and insurance companies $598 billion.

State and local governments and individuals

State and local governments held $1.64 trillion on 31 March 2026. Part of that is the State and Local Government Series, a non-marketable security Treasury issues to municipal entities. It totalled $81 billion on 30 September 2026, according to the Monthly Statement of the Public Debt.

Individuals appear in two places. US savings bonds stood at $146 billion on 30 September 2026. Individuals' holdings of marketable Treasuries bought through TreasuryDirect or a broker sit inside the $6.82 trillion "other investors" category, and Treasury does not publish them separately. Retail buying shows up at auctions: Treasury Retail accounted for $439 million of the $69 billion two-year note sale on 26 October 2026.

Far more households own Treasuries indirectly. A money market fund, a bank deposit, a pension and Social Security credits all rest in part on Treasury securities. Our national debt clock shows the total and its split between the public and government accounts.

What to watch

• Monthly TIC data. The next release covers September 2026. Watch Japan and China, and the foreign official total, which was $3.76 trillion in August against $3.92 trillion a year earlier.
• Foreign official custody at the New York Fed. The H.4.1 release reports this weekly. Marketable Treasuries held for foreign official accounts were $2.57 trillion on 21 October 2026; the weekly average was $176 billion lower than a year earlier.
• The buyer mix at auctions. If foreign demand keeps growing slower than the debt, more of each auction has to be taken up by domestic funds, banks and dealers. The debt-to-GDP guide shows how fast that supply is growing relative to the economy.