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 Statutory Debt Limit is the maximum amount, established by law, of public debt that can be outstanding at a given time. In the Detail of Non-Marketable Treasury Securities Outstanding table, values with an asterisk (*) denote values less than $500,000. Also for data in this table before 2007, redemptions (retired) and inflation adjustments are combined in one field: inflation_adj_amt. Some columns in this dataset overlap with the Historical Debt Outstanding, Gift Contributions to Reduce the Public Debt, Debt to the Penny, Monthly Treasury Statement (MTS), Schedules of Federal Debt, Daily Treasury Statement (DTS), and Savings Bonds Securities datasets.
Debt issued by the Federal Financing Bank is included in the intragovernmental holdings and total public debt outstanding on the MSPD, but not in the Schedules of Federal Debt because it is not debt managed by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service. The difference between these datasets is equal to the amount of the Federal Financing Bank securities outstanding. Total savings bonds outstanding reported in the MSPD will not match total savings bonds outstanding in the Savings Bonds Securities dataset due to a difference in the timing of when reversals and reconciliation transactions are recorded. Gifts to Reduce the Public Debt on the MSPD are reported with a one month lag.
Total Public Debt Outstanding = Debt Held by the Public + Intragovernmental Holdings
Please note that Total Public Debt Outstanding may be calculated differently within different datasets. See those datasets Notes & Known Limitations section for more details.
