Total Public Debt Outstanding Disclaimer
There are six datasets on Fiscal Data which include the national debt, which is referred to as Total Public Debt Outstanding (TPDO). TPDO is the sum of Debt Held by the Public and Intragovernmental (Intragov) Holdings. Some datasets include debt issued by the Federal Financing Bank (FFB). The datasets listed below only include debt issued by the Treasury Department. The list below provides information on where there are differences in debt calculations related to the national debt.
Debt to the Penny contains TPDO, as well as a breakout of Debt Held by the Public and Intragov Holdings. In this dataset, Intragov Holdings includes debt issued by the FFB.
Historical Debt Outstanding contains TPDO, but no breakout of Debt Held by the Public and Intragov Holdings. In this dataset, TPDO includes debt issued by the FFB.
Daily Treasury Statement (DTS) contains Debt Held by the Public and Intragov Holdings, but does not aggregate these two categories into TPDO. In this dataset, Intragov Holdings includes debt issued by the FFB. Dollar values for Debt Held by the Public and Intragov Holdings are rounded in millions to cohere with other data in the dataset. Please note that the published reports on the Fiscal Service site contain TPDO values.
Monthly Treasury Statement (MTS) contains TPDO, as well as a breakout of Debt Held by the Public and Intragov Holdings. In this dataset, Intragov Holdings includes debt issued by the FFB.
Monthly Statement of the Public Debt (MSPD) contains TPDO, as well as a breakout of Debt Held by the Public and Intragov Holdings. In this dataset, Intragov Holdings includes debt issued by the FFB. Dollar values are rounded in millions to cohere with other data in the dataset.
Schedules of Federal Debt contains Debt Held by the Public and Intragov Holdings, but does not aggregate these two categories into TPDO. In this dataset, Intragov Holdings do not include debt issued by the FFB. Dollar values are rounded in millions to cohere with other data in the dataset.
End Total Public Debt Outstanding Disclaimer
The first fiscal year for the U.S. Government started January 1, 1789. There are two entries in calendar year 1843 that coincide with the change in the start of the fiscal year for the federal government. However, there is only one entry in calendar year 1977 when the fiscal year was changed to the current format. Some columns in this dataset overlap with the Debt to the Penny, Daily Treasury Statement (DTS), U.S. Treasury Monthly Statement of the Public Debt (MSPD), and Monthly Treasury Statement (MTS) datasets.
Downloaded CSV files with values greater than $10 trillion may have the final two digits (cents) excluded due to digit limits enforced by the application used to access the file. The JSON and XML file downloads are not impacted by this limitation.
Total Public Debt Outstanding = Debt Held by the Public + Intragovernmental Holdings
Total Public Debt Outstanding is represented in this dataset by the Debt Outstanding Amount variable and does not contain the separate Debt Held by the Public and Intragovernmental Holdings amounts.
Please note that Total Public Debt Outstanding may be calculated differently within different datasets. See those datasets Notes & Known Limitations section for more details.
