Current Federal Debt and Deficit
Every month, the U.S. Treasury releases data on the federal budget, including the current deficit or surplus. The following contains budget data for July 2025, the tenth month of fiscal year (FY) 2025.
Current Federal Deficit
$291B
Federal Budget Deficit for July 2025
$244B
Federal Budget Deficit for July 2024
The federal government reported a deficit of $291 billion in July 2025, an increase of $47 billion from the $244 billion deficit recorded in July 2024. Revenues were up in the past month, however, those gains were outpaced by spending increases.
Spending in July 2025 was $56 billion more than in July last year, largely driven by a $21 billion increase in outlays by the Department of Education related to the estimation of outstanding loan costs. Other categories that contributed to the increased spending were Medicaid ($17 billion more than in July 2025), net interest payments ($11 billion), and Social Security ($10 billion). Offsetting those increases was a $19 billion decrease in outlays by the Department of Housing and Urban Development as a result of a significant downward revision to the estimated costs of outstanding housing loans. Receipts were up by $8 billion in July 2025 compared to the previous year — customs duties collections rose by $21 billion, while individual income taxes fell by $8 billion and excise taxes fell by $7 billion.
Cumulative Federal Deficit
$1.6T
Cumulative FY25 Deficit
$1.5T
Cumulative FY24 Deficit (through July 2024)
Through the first ten months of the fiscal year, the cumulative deficit was $112 billion above last year’s level. However, October 1, 2023, fell on a weekend, thereby causing certain federal payments to be shifted into the previous fiscal year (FY23) and artificially reducing the deficit in FY24. Without that effect, the deficit for FY25 through the end of July would have been $40 billion more than last year’s adjusted total.
For the first ten months of FY25, total outlays were $6.0 trillion, $374 billion higher than the same period in the previous year. Adjusting for the timing shifts, spending was $302 billion above the same period last year. That increase was driven mainly by three categories: Social Security spending was up by $101 billion, stemming from cost-of-living adjustments and some retroactive payments; net interest rose by $78 billion; and Medicare outlays increased by $57 billion (adjusted for timing shifts). Partially offsetting those and other increases was a $79 billion decrease by the Department of Education related to the July 2024 loan estimation adjustment and a $63 billion decrease in outlays by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation related to the resolution of bank failures that occurred last year.
Revenues through the first ten months of FY25 were $262 billion above collections from a year ago, driven by a $165 billion increase in individual income taxes. Receipts were boosted last year by deferred collections of payments from taxpayers in locations that suffered natural disasters. If not for those postponed payments (about $35 billion), the difference in revenues in the first ten months of 2025 relative to the prior year would have been larger. In addition, customs duties were higher in 2025 by $73 billion, mostly because of higher tariffs, and payroll taxes were up by $44 billion.
National Debt
$29.4T
Debt Held by the Public at the end of July 2025
$27.8T
Debt Held by the Public at the end of July 2024
The United States is nearing the end of Fiscal Year 2025, a year that is currently on track to produce the largest deficit the nation has ever seen, outside of the COVID-19 pandemic years, while enshrining a piece of legislation, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, that is projected to ensure future deficits are even larger. The federal debt is approaching its post-World War II high as a percentage of gross domestic product and is on track to rise rapidly. The nation’s increasingly unsustainable outlook argues for bipartisan solutions that will “do no fiscal harm.”