Interest

The bill for carrying the tab.

Interest buys nothing. It is the cost of past votes, paid before a single road, soldier or teacher. These figures are Treasury's, gross of interest paid to government trust funds.

Gross interest, FY2026 to date

$1.17T

through July 2026

Full-year pace

$1.4T

at this year's monthly average

Per second

$44,487

$2,669,268 a minute, $160M an hour

Per U.S. resident this year

$3,421

so far; $8,863 per household

Average rate on the debt

3.447%

as of July 2026

On debt held by the public

$900B

the part paid to outside lenders

Your paycheck vs. the interest meterper second
Your annual pay
You earn, per second$0.0021
The government pays in interest, per second$44,487
Time you'd work to cover one second of interest250.0 days
Interest runs at21,598,901× your pay

Why it compounds

The debt held by the public was $32.42T on 2026-09-01. At an average rate of 3.45%, every additional trillion dollars of borrowing costs roughly $34B a year in interest, forever, unless it is paid down. Each deficit bill on the ledger carries that hidden second price tag. CBO publishes it separately as "debt service effects," and this site shows it where CBO has.