SOURCE FILE · THE DEBT
The National Debt, by Presidency
Fifty years of gross federal debt, with every presidency shaded by party. Nobody is characterized and nothing is adjusted — this is the Treasury's own year-end number, plotted.
One caution before the chart, because it changes what you are looking at: a president's first fiscal year runs on his predecessor's budget, and dollars in 2025 are not dollars in 1981. Both charts are raw, unadjusted dollars.
Gross Federal Debt, FY1975 to Today
Each band is one presidency, shaded by party. Trillions of dollars, at the close of each fiscal year. The dashed run-out is the live Treasury reading for August 28, 2026 — FY2026 does not close until September 30.
The Same Fifty Years, As A Share Of The Economy
Gross federal debt as a percent of GDP, same years and same bands as above. The chart above never falls. This one does.
Added Under Each Presidency
Trillions of dollars, first fiscal year of the term to the last, in office order. The term length sits under each name and the annual rate on the right, because $8.18 trillion over four years is not the same event as $8.34 trillion over eight. * Trump's second term is still running; its bar covers the FY2025 close to August 28, 2026.
The Measure Economists Reach For First
Gross federal debt as a percent of fiscal-year GDP, at the close of the first and last fiscal year of each term. One source, one basis, every year — OMB Historical Table 7.1. This measure grows with the economy instead of against a frozen base, which is why it is the one economists start with.
Biden is first in dollars and last here. The ratio went from 123.2% to 123.3% across his four years — a tenth of a point. He added more dollars than any president on the chart and left the debt almost exactly where he found it relative to the economy.
Two presidents actually reduced it. Clinton took it from 64.2% down to 54.8% — a 9.4-point fall. Carter took it from 34.9% to 31.8%. Nobody else in fifty years finished lower than they started.
George W. Bush added the most ground: 27.3 points, from 54.8% to 82.1%. Then Obama, 22.2 points. Then Reagan, 19.8. Then Trump's first term, 18.9.
The pandemic year is the single largest jump in the series — from 106.5% in FY2019 to 126.1% in FY2020, nearly twenty points in twelve months. It has eased slightly since and has not returned to the 2019 level.
Some of the Trump-to-Biden gap is arithmetic, not policy, and the CRFB says so. Had nominal GDP followed its pre-pandemic path, public-debt growth would read as 20 points under Trump and 11 under Biden. The COVID recession shrank the denominator and the inflation surge afterward re-inflated it.
Gross federal debt closed FY2025 at 123.3% of GDP. The country has owed more than it produces in a year every year since 2020.
The Fastest Rate On This Chart Is The One Running Right Now
Not a ranking — an incomplete term cannot be ranked against completed ones. It is here because it is the largest number on the page and it is still moving.
Trump's second term is adding roughly $2.71 trillion a year. $2.47 trillion arrived between the FY2025 close and August 28, 2026 — about eleven months. No completed presidency on this chart ran at that rate. Biden's four years came to $2.30 trillion a year, Trump's first term $2.05 trillion, Obama's eight years $1.04 trillion.
Ranked By Dollars Added
Gross federal debt at the close of the first fiscal year of each term, to the close of the last. U.S. Treasury figures. Trump's second term is still running and is listed separately at the bottom rather than ranked against completed terms.
1. Biden — $9.21 trillion. From $28.43T to $37.64T.
2. Obama — $8.34 trillion. From $11.91T to $20.24T.
3. Trump, first term — $8.18 trillion. From $20.24T to $28.43T, in four years rather than eight.
4. George W. Bush — $6.10 trillion. From $5.81T to $11.91T.
5. Reagan — $1.86 trillion. From $1.00T to $2.86T.
6. George H.W. Bush — $1.55 trillion. From $2.86T to $4.41T.
7. Clinton — $1.40 trillion. From $4.41T to $5.81T.
8. Carter — $0.30 trillion. From $0.70T to $1.00T.
Not ranked — Trump, second term: $2.47 trillion and counting. From the FY2025 close of $37.64T to $40.10T on August 28, 2026. That is roughly eleven months against four or eight full years for everyone above.
The Same Record, Measured The Other Way
Dollars flatter whoever governed most recently, because the whole economy is bigger. Term length and rate of growth are the measures that do not.
Reagan multiplied the debt by 2.86 — the largest multiple of any president in the fifty years. It went from $1.00 trillion to $2.86 trillion.
George W. Bush multiplied it by 2.05. Obama, 1.70. Reagan and Bush are first and second by this measure and fifth and fourth by the other one.
Biden ranks first in dollars and near-last in rate. He multiplied it by 1.32 — tied with Clinton for the smallest increase of any president on this chart.
Trump's first term multiplied it by 1.40 in four years. Obama's 1.70 took eight.
Divide by the length of the term and the order changes again. Obama added $1.04 trillion a year across eight years. Trump's first term added $2.05 trillion a year across four — nearly double the annual rate, for a total $160 billion smaller. Biden added $2.30 trillion a year.
Not In Dispute
Totals across the whole window, and where the number stands now.
$36.94 trillion was added between the end of FY1977 and the end of FY2025.
Obama and Trump's first term together account for $16.52 trillion of it — about 45 percent, across twelve of those forty-eight years.
The party split is close to even. Democratic presidents added $19.24 trillion, Republican presidents $17.70 trillion — but Democrats held the office for 24 of those years and Republicans for 24.
Other outlets will print different totals than these, and they are not wrong. This page cuts terms at fiscal-year boundaries, which is how budgets are written. Cutting them at inauguration day instead gives Obama $9.32 trillion, Biden $8.45 trillion and Trump's first term $7.8 trillion — a different order. Presidents take office in January and fiscal years end in September, so the two can never agree.
And neither convention shows what a president chose. The CRFB, which publishes both, notes that debt growth during a term "does not reflect how much a president added to the debt." By what each actually signed into law, it scores Trump's first term at $8.4 trillion in ten-year borrowing and Biden at $4.3 trillion.
The debt has never fallen across a full presidency in this fifty-year window. Under every president in the chart, the line ends higher than it started.
The debt has crossed $40 trillion. On August 28, 2026 it stood at $40,104,097,482,666.58 — $32.34 trillion owed to public creditors and $7.76 trillion the government owes itself, mostly to trust funds including Social Security. FY2026 does not close until September 30, which is why the chart runs out to that date as a dashed line rather than a closed year.
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★ The Hole
two honest ways to measure this disagree with each other, and both are on the page. if you think a third one is fairer, send it.
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