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Interest Expense is the interest the government pays on its outstanding loans (Treasury securities). It can be referred to as the cost to the U.S. for borrowing money. The amount of interest expense depends on the total federal debt and the interest rates investors charged when they loaned the money. Average interest rates are a useful measure for showing general trends in the interest the government pays on its loans, even though the true cost of the loans will vary by security type and by the interest rate for those securities when the loan was taken. To see a breakdown of average rates by security, visit the Average Interest Rates on U.S. Treasury Securities dataset.
Interest Expense and Average Interest Rates on the National Debt FY null - FYTD null
Data Sources and Methodologies:
Visit the Interest Expense on the Debt Outstanding and Average Interest Rates on U.S. Treasury Securities datasets to explore and download this data. The interest expense reflects the sum of all interest paid on the debt for each fiscal year or through the latest month of the latest fiscal year. The average interest rate is the average of all interest rates on outstanding securities for the last month of each fiscal year or the most recent month with available data. Because this rate is an average of rates paid on various security types, the interest expense cannot be determined by multiplying the average interest rate by the outstanding debt.