Fact check: US debt is held by both people and governments

In a widely shared post on social media a user said that the UK holds 888.5 billion US dollars (£662.3 billion) of US debt. They added: “You don’t have the cards Donald.”

Evaluation

This figure measures all US debt held in British accounts, so includes not just how much the UK Government holds, but also how much US debt is held by individuals and organisations.

While the accounts are in the UK, the account holders include people and companies not based in the country.

The facts

Most US Government debt is not held by foreign entities. In November 2025 US gross national debt lay at 38.1 trillion dollars (£28.4 trillion).

Data from the US Treasury shows that in November – the latest available data – somewhat under 9.4 trillion dollars (£7.0 trillion) of US debt was held abroad.

Of this the UK was the second largest holder – after Japan – with 888.5 billion dollars of US government debt.

However, as explained in a report from the Library of Congress, not all of this is likely to be held by the British Government.

“Foreign holdings can be divided into official (governmental investment) and private sources,” the report said.

Data from the US Treasury shows that in November foreign governments owned around 42% of foreign-held US government debt. That is around 3.9 trillion dollars (£2.9 trillion) of the 9.4 trillion total.

The US does not publish data on what proportion of UK-held debt is government-owned and what proportion is owned by private people or businesses. The Library of Congress report explained these breakdowns are not publicly available on a country-by-country basis.

The US Treasury itself warns that the country-by-country data can be flawed as they measure amounts held in accounts in that country, not the amounts held by people and businesses in that country.

The US Treasury said: “For example, a German investor may buy a US security and place it in the custody of a Swiss bank. In the surveys of foreign holdings of US securities, such a holding is recorded against Switzerland rather than Germany.”

This is particularly pronounced for countries – like the UK – that have large financial centres, and the US Treasury said: “This ‘custodial bias’ contributes to the large recorded foreign holdings of US securities in major financial centres, such as Belgium, the Caribbean banking centres, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.”

Links

Post on X (archived)

US Congress, Joint Economic Committee – Monthly debt update, November 2025 (archived)

US Treasury – Table 5: Major Foreign Holders of Treasury Securities (archived)

Congress.gov – Foreign Holdings of Federal Debt (archived)

US Treasury – Frequently Asked Questions Regarding the TIC System and TIC Data (archived)