Net interest as a share of GDP (fiscal year)
Office of Management and Budget · fiscal year · 86 observations
3.20%
As of FY2025
+0.16 pp vs prior FY
Percent
Source: OMB
About this series
What it measures
Federal net interest outlays divided by GDP for the same fiscal year, using OMB's fiscal-year GDP built from BEA quarterly data.
Why it matters
It scales the government's borrowing costs to the size of the economy, so years decades apart can be compared.
Common misreads
FY2025 was 3.20% using fiscal-year GDP from OMB Table 1.2, against 3.19% in FY1991. On current BEA GDP averaged over each fiscal year's four quarters, FY2025 is 3.18% and FY1991 is 3.19%, so the order of the two years flips depending on which GDP figures are used. This page does not rank FY2025 against earlier years. Do not divide by calendar-year GDP.