US National Debt

Overview

The collector calls the Treasury's Debt to the Penny dataset every day at 11am and stores one record per Treasury record date, the business days on which the figures are published. `totalDebt` is total public debt outstanding, `publicDebt` is debt held by the public, `intragovernmentalDebt` is debt held by government accounts, and `publicDebtRatio` is publicDebt as a percent of totalDebt, rounded to two decimals.

`perCapita` divides the total by a fixed US population of 335,000,000, which is also what `population` returns, so it is an estimate that does not track census changes. `perHousehold` divides the total by that population over 2.5 people per household.

`date` takes YYYY-MM-DD. When the date has no record, the API searches back up to ten days and returns the nearest earlier one; `date` echoes what you asked for and `recordDate` shows the record actually used. Without `date` you get the newest record.

With `changes=true`, `previousDebt` and `previousDate` are the record before the returned one. `change30d` and `change1y` compare with the record 30 and 365 days back, or the nearest before each. `averageDailyChange30d` divides `change30d` by the calendar days between the two records, so weekends spread the growth instead of inflating it. Dollar changes are rounded to cents; any comparison whose record is missing is null.

Live Test US National Debt Source →

Formula

One function covers the whole catalog: the first argument names the source, the next are its inputs, and the field after them says which single value lands in the cell. Formulas covers the grammar that applies to all of them.

=VERVE("nationaldebt", "recordDate")

Inputs

Required inputs are positional, in the order below, followed by the field. Everything else is passed as a "name", value pair after that — the same shape as SUMIFS. Premium inputs are accepted on every plan but only take effect on plans that include them.

Input	Type	Where it goes	Description
`date`Optional	string	"date", value	Optional date in YYYY-MM-DD format for historical lookup. Omit for current data. date
`changes`Optional	boolean	"changes", value	Include the previous record's total and the growth over 1 day, 30 days and 1 year

Passing an option

=VERVE("nationaldebt", "recordDate", "date", "2023-06-15")

What lands in your sheet

The field — the argument after the inputs — is what makes the formula resolve to one cell. Its value is a dot-path from the table below, so swapping it is how you pull a different value — one formula per column.

Seeing everything at once

Leave the field out and the formula returns the whole response instead: two columns, field name on the left and value on the right, spilling from the cell you typed in.

=VERVE("nationaldebt")

Good for exploring, not for filling down

The second row's table would land on top of the first's, and every cell after the first reads #REF! (#SPILL! in Excel). Keep one per sheet, or name a field, and leave the cells below and to the right empty.

Response fields

Paths are relative to data. Each one is exactly what the field argument accepts, so swapping it is how you pull a different value into a cell. On a plan without a Premium field the cell reads #PREMIUM(field) rather than a value, so a locked field never looks like a real answer.

Use as the field	Type	Example cell value	Description
`date`	string	`2026-10-26`	Date of the national debt data (YYYY-MM-DD format)
`recordDate`	string	`2026-10-26`	Treasury record date the figures come from (YYYY-MM-DD); the nearest prior business day when the requested date has no record
`totalDebt`	number	`40528358939415.85`	Total US national debt in dollars
`totalDebtFormatted`	string	`$40.53 trillion`	Total debt formatted as readable currency string
`publicDebt`	number	`32635294814294.48`	US debt held by the public in dollars
`publicDebtFormatted`	string	`$32.64 trillion`	Public debt formatted as readable currency string
`intragovernmentalDebt`Premium	number	`7893064125121.37`	Intragovernmental debt holdings in dollars
`intragovernmentalDebtFormatted`Premium	string	`$7.89 trillion`	Intragovernmental debt formatted as currency string
`perCapita`Premium	number	`120980`	Estimated national debt per person in dollars
`perCapitaFormatted`Premium	string	`$120,980`	Per capita debt formatted as currency string
`population`	number	`335000000`	US population used for per capita calculations
`publicDebtRatio`	number	`80.52`	Public debt as percentage of total debt
`perHousehold`Premium	number	`302450.44`	Estimated national debt per household in dollars
`perHouseholdFormatted`Premium	string	`$302,450`	Per household debt formatted as currency string
`previousDebt`	number	`40463151897249.19`	Total public debt on the previous Treasury record (with changes=true)
`previousDate`	string	`2026-10-23`	Date of the previous Treasury record (YYYY-MM-DD) (with changes=true)
`change1d`Premium	number	`65207042166.66`	Change in total debt from the previous record, in US dollars (with changes=true)
`change30d`Premium	number	`431180819664.95`	Change in total debt from the record 30 days earlier (or the nearest before it), in US dollars (with changes=true)
`change1y`Premium	number	`2519332979958.45`	Change in total debt from the record one year earlier (or the nearest before it), in US dollars (with changes=true)
`changePercent1y`Premium	number	`6.6282`	Percent change in total debt over one year (with changes=true)
`averageDailyChange30d`Premium	number	`13909058698.87`	Average change in total debt per calendar day over the last 30 days, in US dollars (with changes=true)

When a cell doesn't fill

A failed lookup returns readable text starting with #ERR rather than a spreadsheet error, because Excel cannot show a custom message on a real error — you would get a bare #VALUE! with no reason. The trade-off is that IFERROR() will not catch it; test with LEFT(cell, 4) = "#ERR" instead. Error handling covers the rest.

Cell reads	What happened
`#ERR Not connected`	No API key saved. Open the side panel and connect your account.
`#ERR Replace <name> with a cell or value`	A preview formula was copied as-is. Swap the placeholder for a cell reference.
`#ERR No "x" in nationaldebt`	An option name this source does not take. The message lists the ones it does.
`#ERR No data point "…"`	The field path is not in the response. Check it against the table above.
`#PREMIUM(field)`	The field exists but your plan does not include it.
`#ERR Out of credits`	The cycle's credits are spent. Usage resets on your billing date.

Before the formula works

The add-in reads the API key you saved once in the side panel — the key never goes in the formula, so a shared sheet does not leak it and a collaborator without access simply sees the last calculated values.

Install the add-in for Google Sheets or Excel.
Open the side panel and sign in, or paste a key from your dashboard.
Type the formula above into any cell.

Use cases

Financial Dashboards: Display real-time national debt figures on financial dashboards and economic monitoring tools
Economic Research: Analyze historical debt trends for economic research and policy analysis
Educational Tools: Build educational applications showing government debt and per-capita calculations
News Applications: Provide up-to-date debt figures for news and media applications

Other ways to use US National Debt

Set up US National Debt on VerveSheets, or reach the same source a different way. Your VerveSheets account and credits work on all of them — one key, one balance.

Call it as a REST APIOne HTTPS endpoint and an x-api-key header, with SDKs for Node, Python and .NET.APIVerve →Reference →

Give it to an AI agentConnect over MCP and your agent calls it as a native tool — Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT.VerveKit →Reference →

Ground an agent on itA cited, machine-checkable fact your model can't produce on its own.VerveContext →Reference →