Financial Accounts of the United States (Z.1) · Debt securities and loans owed, by sector, end of quarter
How much debt does each part of the US economy owe?
The quarter ended : of the 7 lines, the change over a year was largest for Rest of the world, up 13.7%, and smallest for Households and nonprofit organizations, up 3.9%.
Debt by sector, households and business, each quarter
- Households and nonprofit organizations21.3814.15 to 21.38
- Nonfinancial business23.9714.04 to 23.97
- Nonfinancial corporate business15.709.12 to 15.70
Debt by sector, governments, each quarter
- Federal government34.9215.62 to 34.92
- State and local governments3.823.24 to 3.82
Debt by sector, financial and foreign, each quarter
- Domestic financial sectors27.6617.63 to 27.66
- Rest of the world8.614.20 to 8.61
Each row is one line of the page over the last ten years, one quarter to a point, on a scale shared by the rows of the tab, with its newest value and its range printed beside it and a dashed line at zero. A gap is a quarter with no value. Pointing at the chart shows the quarter and the value.
Observed .
Right now
Over a year to the second quarter of 2026, of the 7 lines on this page the change was largest for Rest of the world, up 13.7%, and smallest for Households and nonprofit organizations, up 3.9%.
Of these lines, 7 rose, 0 fell and 0 did not change over the year (ours, from the published values).
By lineOver a year, ours
Debt by sector, change over a year, by line
- Households and business
- Governments
- Financial and foreign
Each bar is the change in one line over a year, the largest first, with its rank at the left and its newest value under the figure. A line with its own page links it from its name. A change below zero runs to the left of the zero line. The colour says which section of the page a line is in.
Observed .
Debt by sector, change over a year in each quarter
| Line | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Households and nonprofit organizations | +2.7 | +2.5 | +2.7 | +3.0 | +3.1 | +3.5 | +3.6 | +3.9 |
| Nonfinancial business | +3.6 | +3.2 | +3.1 | +3.0 | +3.2 | +4.2 | +5.0 | +5.1 |
| Nonfinancial corporate business | +4.2 | +3.3 | +3.2 | +2.9 | +3.0 | +4.3 | +5.2 | +5.4 |
| Federal government | +7.7 | +7.3 | +6.2 | +5.6 | +7.1 | +7.3 | +8.1 | +9.1 |
| State and local governments | +2.8 | +2.8 | +3.2 | +3.8 | +4.2 | +4.6 | +5.1 | +5.3 |
| Domestic financial sectors | +1.1 | +1.5 | +4.8 | +6.0 | +3.4 | +4.9 | +4.2 | +4.5 |
| Rest of the world | +9.3 | +5.3 | +13.2 | +15.7 | +15.1 | +17.4 | +12.6 | +13.7 |
Each chip is one quarter's change from the same quarter a year earlier. The mark in its middle is zero: a fill to the right of it is a rise and a fill to the left a fall. A longer, brighter fill is a larger change, in five steps up to 12.6 and over. Every chip prints its figure and sign.
Observed .
Understanding debt by sector
Where it stands today
The largest change over a year was Rest of the world, up 13.7%, in the second quarter of 2026.
What do the lines of this page measure?
The Federal Reserve Board's Financial Accounts of the United States (Z.1) add up, for each sector, the debt securities and the loans it owes at the end of each quarter. This page sets the sectors side by side: households, nonfinancial business, the federal government, state and local governments, financial firms and the rest of the world.
Read more
A sector's debt is owed to the others, so the lines are not added together here. The federal government line is the Board's amount of debt securities and loans owed, counted in the Z.1; the Treasury pages count the debt another way.
What 500metrics adds: the change over a year of every sector, ranked across the page; the last ten years of every sector as rows of small charts; and a table of the change over a year in each of the last eight quarters. Households, nonfinancial corporate business and state and local governments have a page of their own.
The numbers behind the chart
What is the latest value of each line?7 lines, in the sections of the page
| Line | Section | Quarter | Value | Change over a year | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Households and nonprofit organizations | Households and business | $21.38 trillion | +3.9% | 7 | |
| Nonfinancial business | Households and business | $23.97 trillion | +5.1% | 5 | |
| Nonfinancial corporate business | Households and business | $15.70 trillion | +5.4% | 3 | |
| Federal government | Governments | $34.92 trillion | +9.1% | 2 | |
| State and local governments | Governments | $3.82 trillion | +5.3% | 4 | |
| Domestic financial sectors | Financial and foreign | $27.66 trillion | +4.5% | 6 | |
| Rest of the world | Financial and foreign | $8.61 trillion | +13.7% | 1 |
The table scrolls sideways; the first column stays in place.
What do these figures leave out, and how are they cited?Limits, dates and how to cite
What this number cannot tell you
- Debt is what is owed. The page does not weigh it against income, assets or the ability to repay.
- Nonfinancial business holds both corporations and unincorporated business, so the nonfinancial corporate line is a part of it. The other lines do not overlap.
- The federal government line differs from the national debt on the Treasury pages, which count debt in the Treasury's own way and on its own dates.
- The Board revises past quarters in later releases; this page always shows the newest release.
- The changes and the ranks are ours, worked out from the values the Board publishes; a change is in percent.
Observed . Checked .
How to cite this
Federal Reserve Board, Financial Accounts of the United States (Z.1), Debt securities and loans owed, by sector, end of quarter, through the second quarter of 2026. Compiled by 500metrics, "How much debt does each part of the US economy owe?", https://500metrics.com/debt-by-sector.
Can the data be downloaded?debt-by-sector.csv
Download the last ten years of every line as CSV: 287 rows, to , 19,646 bytes.
Our text and compilation: CC BY 4.0.
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