A hot question for an iffy situation. So here are the holders as of Q3.
By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET:
The US national debt keeps ballooning at an amazing rate and has now reached $36.16 trillion. These are Treasury securities that private and public entities in the US and foreign countries hold as interest-earning assets. The question is: Who holds this debt? Who bought it even as the Fed has been unloading its holdings? At the end of Q3, the time frame here, the total debt was $35.46 trillion.
Who held this $35.46 trillion in Treasury securities at the end of Q3?
US Government entities: $7.16 trillion. This “debt held internally,” also called “intragovernmental holdings,” consists of Treasury securities held by various federal civilian and military pension funds, the Social Security Trust Fund (we discussed the Social Security Trust Fund holdings, income, and outgo here), the Disability Insurance Trust Fund, the Medicare Trust Funds, and other funds.
The “public” held the remaining $28.31 trillion at the end of Q3. It’s these holdings we’re going to look at in a moment.
Who is this “public?”
Foreign holders: $8.67 trillion, or 30.6% of the debt held by the public, including foreign private sector holdings and foreign official holdings, such as by central banks, according to Treasury Department data.
Overall foreign holdings of Treasury securities have continued to rise from record to record. The biggest holders are the top six financial centers ($2.60 trillion), the Euro Area ($1.78 trillion), Japan ($1.12 trillion), China and Hong Kong combined ($1.0 trillion).
Other big holders with rapidly growing holdings include Canada ($370 billion), Taiwan ($288 billion), and India ($247 billion). We discussed the details here:
While China has reduced its holdings of Treasury securities, the Euro Area has more than made up for it:
US mutual funds: 17.6% or about $5.0 trillion of the debt held by the public. This includes bond mutual funds, money market mutual funds, according to the Quarterly Fixed Income Report for Q3 from SIFMA (Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association).
Federal Reserve: 15.4% or $4.36 trillion of the debt held by the public. Under its QT program, the Fed has already shed $1.46 trillion of Treasury securities since the peak in June 2022 (our latest update on the Fed’s balance sheet).
US Individuals: 10.3% or about $3.1 trillion of the debt held by the public, according to quarterly data from SIFMA. These are investors who hold Treasuries in their accounts in the US.
US State and local governments, including in their pension funds: 6.4% or about $1.8 trillion of the debt held by the public, according to SIFMA.
US Commercial Banks: 6.1% or $1.73 trillion of the debt held by the public at the end of November, according to Federal Reserve data about bank balance sheets – back to the record established in May 2022. Banks are re-loving them?
US Private Pension funds: 3.7% or $1.1 trillion of the debt held by the public.
US Insurance companies: 2.3% or $0.63 trillion of the debt held by the public.
Nonmarketable Securities Held by the Public: 2.1% or $0.59 trillion of the debt held by the public, according to Treasury Department data. These securities held by the public cannot be traded in the market and are not purchased at auctions but directly from the government. They include the I series savings bonds and the EE savings bonds, largely held by savers and retail investors. They also include the “State and Local Government Series” that are held by state and local governments, the Government Account series, and other bonds.
“Other”: $0.4 trillion or 1.4% of securities held by the public, according to SIFMA’s report.
The burden of the US national debt: The magnitude and speed of the Interest-Payments-to-Tax-Receipts ratio’s two-year spike is unprecedented in modern US history. It does not look good. Read… Federal Government Interest-Payments-to-Tax-Receipts Ratio Spikes, Debt-to-GDP Worsens Further in Q3.
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Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!!
🎇🧨✨🎁🎀♥️
Thank you for another insightful year. Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas to you as well. Another great year of commentary!
Merry Christmas Wolf to you and yours! Thank you for all you do to inform!
Merry Christmas, Wolf and all.
Merry Christmas Wolf. Thanks so much. Here’s to a healthy, happy, and prosperous 2025. 🎄
Feliz Navidad, Wolf and all!
Merry Christmas 🎄 Wolf to you and yours!!
Merry Christmas
Wolf, is it possible to identify which amounts of treasuries are hold by stable coins?
Whenever someone investing in cryptos he changes cash into stable coins. Stable coins keeping cash at banks and buying treasuries and other investments
Whenever someone is selling cryptos the opposite happens and treasuries are sold.
Not any expert on crypto stablecoins but ran into the following. No guarantees on accuracy but probably pretty close to reality. Looks like bitcoins ends year with another huge gain. Wowser
Quote;
Ubiquitously recognized as “crypto’s killer app”, the global importance of stablecoins started permeating beyond the crypto industry. Stablecoins continued to export the dollar around the world, crossing an aggregate $210B in supply. USDT ($138B) and USDC ($42B) remained the dominant players, while a majority of stablecoin supply tilted in favor of the Ethereum network, with $122B in stablecoin supply. Altogether, stablecoins facilitated $1.4T in monthly (adjusted) transfer volumes in November.
While stablecoins’ role as a medium of exchange and store of value in emerging economies has been widely explored, momentum around their utility in payments and financial services infrastructure accelerated with Stripe’s acquisition of Bridge. Furthermore, with 99% of stablecoins USD-pegged and nearly $100B directly invested in U.S. Treasuries by Tether and Circle, they also solidified their position as key vehicles for preserving dollar dominance on a global scale.
May the festivus pole grant you many wishes!
Joyeux Noel!
Merry Christmas Mr Richter.
Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays!
The positive side is the chickens are back home to roost. We don’t have a political system that can solve the ever expanding deficit in a meaningful way and of course payments on debt will continue to increase. However seems like there is plenty of can kicking to do before a proverbial fan shows up. We are an individualist society so you have to get your slice of the pie if you have the means to do so.
Thank you for this website, WR…. Small time, T Bill investor
Thanks and Merry Christmas. Best wishes to you and your family,
It appears the Bank of Canada is trying to stabilize the Cdn dollar through it’s treasury purchases – the recent charts suggest it isn’t succeeding well, as it seems to have an EKG-like recent history against the US Dollar.
MW: 10-year Treasury yield hits fresh 7-month high during holiday-shortened session
Telegraph: Why US borrowing could soon eclipse Greece and Italy as world drowns in debt
America now owes more money than the value of its economy – which should worry us all. When it comes to economic performance, few prime ministers or presidents would welcome comparison with Greece. Images of protests, riot police and the streets of Athens ablaze dominate the international memory, dating from the country’s debt crisis in 2011.
By the pandemic, its debt was more than double the size of its economy, a position matched by some of the world’s poorest and most crisis-ridden danger zones including Eritrea, Sudan and Venezuela. It’s not a club anyone would wish to join.
But astonishingly, economists predict that in a decade’s time, another nation will have joined this dubious roll of honour – the United States of America.
Merry Christmas and thanks for educating me.
Merry Christmas and a wonderful New year to you WR. Thanks for all you do.
Merry Christmas Wolf….I’m in Tokyo with mine & you’re in SF with yours!
We are so lucky!
What ever happened to the 3 wise men?
Merry Christmas everyone!
Simple – they recognize a crockful of **** when they see one, and wisely,
disappeared from Dodge.
“US Individuals: 10.3% or about $3.1 trillion of the debt held by the public, according to quarterly data from SIFMA. These are investors who hold Treasuries in their accounts in the US.”
Oh crap, they are on to me. I’m gonna have to shift that $3.1 trillion to crypto.
“I’ll have two egg nogs and a side order of toast.” “Sorry, we don’t serve toast on the side.” “But you do have a Christmas sandwich on toast, right?” “Yes we do.” “Well, then make me a Christmas sandwich, remove the toast, and put it on a side plate.” “But what will we do with the Christmas?” “Keep Christmas. Keep it between your legs!”
Merry friggin’ Christmas, everyone! (Just humoring y’all). Now fork up for the bill!
The Chart you have comparing the “China-Hong Kong” Reduction in US Treasury Holdings, and being Made up with “Euro Area” increase in US Treasury Holdings is interesting.
Could it be that because the “Euro Area” has increased significantly US Treasury Holdings in making up for “China-Hong Kong” reduction of US Treasuries, that this is also an Influence in which the Federal Reserve had decided to Cut Interest Rates, in which they intended to remain and increase the value of US Treasuries so the “Euro-Area” can continue to buying more US Treasuries to offset “China-Hong Kong” Reduction .
It would also be interesting to see how much of the “Euro Area” increase in US Treasuries is from Government (ECB Central Bank, etc..) vs Other, and how much of the Reduction of US Treasuries is from “China-Hong Kong” is from Government (China Central Bank, etc..) vs. Other
Merry Christmas Wolf and thanks for the great writeup
Merry Christmas to all and to all Good Morning! Thanks Professor Richter for your gift of insight!
Feliz Navidad y Prospero año a todos desde Costa Rica. Gracias senor Wolf
Bonne année, bonne santé, beaucoup d’argent dans la porte-monnaie! Merry Christmas and thank you for providing such down-to-earth education, great sense of humor, and sparking very lively and entertaining discussions. Happy New Year to you and all your readers!
Recently discovered you Wolf. Some very insightful data which tend to dispel a lot of the over simplifications one see’s in the media. While the debt is indeed up wazoo and needs to be addressed it is good to see a bit of popular mythology dismissed namely that most of our debt is owned by foreigners like China who could destroy us if they chose to sell off. I’ve been reading these nonsensical bogeyman stories for years. I assume most of them emanated from conservative think tanks or others with a similar agenda.