Sunday, October 18, 2026

US Budget Deficit, Receipts, Outlays for FY 2026

On October 15, 2026, the US Treasury reported in its Monthly Treasury Statement (and xlsx) for September that the federal deficit for FY 2025 ending September 30, 2026, was $1,99 billion. Here are the numbers, including total receipts, total outlays, and deficit compared with the numbers projected in the FY 2026 federal budget published in February 2025:

Federal Finances
FY 2026 Outcomes
Budget
billions
Outcome
billions
Receipts $5,873    $5,403
Outlays$7,419$7,396
Deficit$1,547$1,993

The Monthly Treasury Statement includes "Table 4: Receipts of the United States Government, September 2026 and Other Periods." This table of receipts by source is used for usgovernmentspending.com to post details of federal receipt actuals for FY 2025. usdgovernmentspending.com obtains the data for outlays and receipts from apis at fiscaldata.treasury.gov.


This MTS report on FY 2026 actuals is a problem for usgovernmentspending.com because this site uses Historical Table 3.2--Outlays by Function and Subfunction from the Budget of the United States as its basic source for federal subfunction outlays. But the Monthly Treasury Statement only includes "Table 9. Summary of Receipts by Source, and Outlays by Function of the U.S. Government, September 2025 and Other Periods". Subfunction amounts don't get reported until the FY28 budget in February 2027. Until then usgovernmentspending.com estimates actual outlays by "subfunction" for FY 2026 by factoring subfunction budgeted amounts for FY26 by the ratio between relevant actual and budgeted "function" amounts where actual outlays by subfunction cannot be gleaned from the Monthly Treasury Statement.

Final detailed FY 2026 actuals will not appear on usgovernmentspending.com until the FY 2028 federal budget is published in February 2027 with the actual outlays for FY 2026* in Historical Table 3.2--Outlays by Function and Subfunction.

Friday, August 7, 2026

State and Local Finances for 2024

On August 7, 2026 we updated the state and local spending and revenue for FY 2024 using the new Census Bureau State and Local Government Finances summaries for FY 2024 released in July 2026.  (See also Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances). The release includes state and local spending for the United States as a whole and the 50 individual states and the District of Columbia.

State and local spending and revenue for FY2024 are now actual historical spending as reported by the Census Bureau.

We have updated the "guesstimated" state and local finances for FY2025-31 as indicated in our "guesstimate" blog entries.

We have also updated data for individual local government units with data for 2024. 

Beginning in 2022 the Census Bureau has changed the value for Line 56 Direct Expenditure and Line 7 General Revenue from own sources, as follows:

We have decided to end our publication of non-insurance trust cash and security holdings.

However, to keep the time series at usgovernmentspending.com consistent, we have decided to add insurance-trust values back into Line 56 and Line 7 values. 

Friday, July 3, 2026

State and Local Finances for 2024 -- First Look

On July 2, 2026 we updated the state and local spending and revenue for FY 2024 using the new Census Bureau State and Local Government Finances "first look"summaries for FY 2024 released in April 2026.  (See also Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances). The release includes state and local spending for the United States as a whole. It does not include the 50 individual states and the District of Columbia.

State and local spending and revenue for FY2024 are now actual historical spending as reported by the Census Bureau.

We have updated the "guesstimated" state and local finances for FY2025-31 as indicated in our "guesstimate" blog entries.

Beginning in 2021, the Census Bureau stopped splitting "Public welfare" into three parts:

  • Cash assistance payments
  • Vendor payments
  • Other public welfare
This is a problem for usgovernmentspending.com, because most of "Vendor payments" are for health care and are just pass-through grants from the federal government. So, for the time being, we are splitting "Public welfare" into  the proportions that obtained in 2021.