When did the US national debt pass each trillion dollars?

What this number cannot tell you

• The debt is the Treasury's total public debt outstanding, held by the public and by US government accounts. The Treasury gives it to the cent for each business day; this page holds an amount to the whole dollar and compares it with a mark to the cent. A weekend or a holiday has no total.
• A trillion is first reached on the earliest business day whose total is at or above it. The total can fall back under a mark on a later day: the table notes the day it was under again and the day from which it has stayed above, and the first day stays the date of the mark.
• The days a trillion took are the calendar days from the first day of the mark before it. The $5 trillion row has no days: the mark before it was passed before the daily figures begin on 1 April 1993.
• Before 1 April 1993 the Treasury gives the debt once a year, so the first four trillions have no day. Each row shows the last row of the yearly table under the mark and the first at or above it. Nothing between them is estimated, and they have no debt per person.
• Debt per person is ours: the total of the day divided by the Census Bureau's estimate of residents of the 50 states and the District of Columbia for 1 July on or before that day (the newest estimate for a day after the newest 1 July). The estimate used is printed beside each figure and is never scaled forward. It is the total divided by all those residents, and it is shown to the nearest hundred dollars.
• The estimate is the Bureau of Economic Analysis' table SAINC1, line 2, which takes it from the Census Bureau's estimates for 1 July. This product uses the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) Data API but is not endorsed or certified by BEA.
• Debt per household is ours: the total of the day divided by the Census Bureau's count of households in March of the year of the day (the year before for a day before 1 March, the newest count for a later day), from the Current Population Survey's Annual Social and Economic Supplement, Table HH-1. The count is a sample-survey estimate, published in thousands, for the survey year (the survey is known as the March supplement but is collected from February to April). The count used is printed beside each figure and is never scaled forward. The Bureau changed the population estimates its survey uses in 2025, so the 2025 count is not strictly comparable with the years before it.
• Debt per tax return is ours: the total of the day divided by the returns of the tax year before the year of the day (the newest tax year held for a later day). A tax return is not a person: a joint return covers two adults, and some returns report no income tax. The count is the Internal Revenue Service's sample estimate for the tax year, which it publishes a little over two years after it ends (tax year 2023 was posted in March 2026). The count used is printed beside each figure and is never scaled forward.
• The newest marks of the debt per household and per tax return are provisional: a newer count is applied to every day it covers, so a mark can move when the Census Bureau or the Internal Revenue Service publishes one.
• Households: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplement, Table HH-1.
• Tax returns: U.S. Internal Revenue Service, Statistics of Income, individual income tax returns.
• The figures are in dollars of their own day. They are not adjusted for prices or the size of the economy.
• The Treasury can revise a figure after it is published. This page shows the figures as the Treasury gives them when the page is built.