The key facts
- US national debt has reached $40.528 trillion — a new record according to the Treasury Department
- The debt crossed the $40 trillion mark on August 18 and has since added more than $0.5 trillion
- Over ten years, the debt has more than doubled from $19.8 trillion
Record level of debt
The US national debt has reached $40.528 trillion, according to data from the US Department of the Treasury cited by Life.ru. The debt crossed the $40 trillion mark on August 18; over the following two months the figure first rose by about 1%, and by the end of October it reached a new record. Thus, since passing the previous milestone, the debt has grown by more than half a trillion dollars.
Long-term dynamics
The growth is rapid even over the long term: at the end of October 2016, the US national debt stood at $19.8 trillion, meaning that over ten years it has more than doubled — by more than $20 trillion. For comparison, Europe is also seeing rising debt burdens: according to figures cited in the same publication, Belgium's public debt at the end of the second quarter of 2026 reached 110.2% of GDP for the first time, while the average figure for the eurozone rose over the year from 87.3% to 88.8%.
