US Federal Net Interest · % of GDP (fiscal year)

## What this measures

What the federal government spends on net interest in a fiscal year (October to September), as a percent of GDP over the same twelve months: OMB's net interest outlays (FRED FYOINT, millions of dollars) divided by OMB's fiscal-year GDP (FRED FYGDP, billions), a Palanor calculation. Annual from fiscal 1940 to fiscal 2025; each value is dated the end of its fiscal year as FRED dates it.

## Why it matters

Interest is the part of the budget that grows on its own as debt rolls over at higher rates. As a share of GDP it is the cleanest single measure of how heavy the debt has become to carry.

## How to read it

Higher means more of the economy's output goes to the government's creditors. It was 3.20% in fiscal 2025; the highest in this record is 3.20% (fiscal 2025). For the quarterly path within a year use us.fiscal.net_interest_pct_gdp_q.

## What it does not say

Net interest is interest paid on debt held by the public less interest the government earns (on student loans, for example) and intragovernmental adjustments. It is the budget's own basis, the one CBO projects; FRED's ready-made ratio (fred_us_interest_pct_gdp) uses the same OMB inputs but is not licensed for redistribution, so Palanor computes its own.

## Source

Office of Management and Budget, Historical Tables, via FRED: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYOINT and https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYGDP. Public domain. Palanor calculation in src/lib/sovereign/us-fiscal.ts, run weekly by the sovereign sync after fred-sync updates the inputs.