The debt ledger.
The United States has kept a public ledger of what it owes since 1790, when the number was $71 million. On August 18, 2026 the same ledger crossed $40 trillion — and it is written down to the penny, every business day, by the Treasury itself. This report reads that ledger whole: the 236-year climb, the accelerating ladder of trillion-dollar crossings, and the pace of the most recent year — — per second. Every figure is the Treasury's own row.
published 2026-08-27 · data cutoff 2026-08-25 · edition 1 — updated only by a new dated edition · source: U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data
Forty trillions, each with a date.
Every rung is one trillion dollars, and the width of its bar is how long that trillion took. The first took from 1790 to 1982 — 191 fiscal years. The fortieth took — days. Read top to bottom and the ladder does the arguing: the rungs get shorter, and lately they barely span a season.
Two hundred thirty-six years, one line.
The whole ledger on a log scale — the only honest scale for a number that grew a millionfold, and the axis says so. On a log chart, a straight line means a constant growth rate: the ledger's slope steepens at the Civil War, the World Wars, the 1980s, 2008, and 2020 — wars and crises are where the rate itself jumps.
The last three years, day by day.
The daily ledger is a staircase, not a ramp: flat treads while the debt ceiling binds, then vertical risers when it lifts. The 2023 standstill and its June release are the picture's centerpiece — the ledger froze for months, then repriced in days. The dashed line is the trailing-year pace: — every second.
Where every number comes from.
Two Treasury series, one ledger. Historical Debt Outstanding gives one fiscal-year amount per year from 1790. Debt to the Penny gives every business day from April 1993, split into debt held by the public and intragovernmental holdings. Both are published by the U.S. Treasury's Fiscal Data service and fetched as published — no adjustment, no deflation, no smoothing.
Crossings. A trillion crossing is the first record at or above the round number. Before April 1993 that date is a fiscal year (annual resolution, stated on the rung); after, it is exact to the business day.
The per-second rate is arithmetic, not a model: the latest total minus the total 365 days earlier, divided by the seconds in a year. It describes the trailing year only.
Nominal dollars. Every figure is in the dollars of its own day, and the report says so where it matters. Deflating a 1790 ledger row is a modeling choice; this report reads the ledger, it does not model it.
Limits. This page states what the ledger owes, not why — attribution of the climb to policy belongs to analysis this page does not perform.