Debt Limit History
This website combines all of the resources previously available at Appropriations.com and GovBudget.com, with the Trillions National Weekly newsletter.
Take a few weeks to familiarize yourself with the resources on this new site, then, beginning March 1, 2026, the resources will be available to all paid subscribers for only $8/month or $50/year. If you subscribe by January 31st, you’ll receive 20% off.
All of this up-to-date, nonpartisan content is easily accessible by typing TrillionsWeekly.com into your browser.
Technical Note: Since 1982, when “Money and Finance” laws were recodified in a new Title 31, the debt limit has been changed or suspended by amending 31 U.S.C. §3101(b). Prior to 1982, a change in the statutory limit was accomplished by amending the first sentence of section 21 of the Second Liberty Bond Act (previously codified at 31 U.S.C. 757b). The following debt limit amounts have been verified by statutory inspection and double-checked against OMB data available.
Note: Before 1917, Congress typically specified the interest rates, maturities, call options, and other aspects of debt issuances. [Congressional Research Service report, R45011, Nov. 2021]
(1) Prior to 1983, the debt limit was divided between a permanent portion ($400b back to 1971), and a temporary portion that was the object of legislative increases. This table shows the total of both portions for analytical purposes.
(2) This public law codified Title 31 of the U.S. Code reorganizing laws pertaining to “Money and Finance.” After this codification, the debt limit has been amended, or suspended, by referencing 31 U.S.C. §3101(b). Prior to this, the legal change in the limit was accomplished by amending the first sentence of section 21 of the Second Liberty Bond Act (31 U.S.C. 757b).
(3) In addition to increasing the debt limit, P.L. 96-78 created the “Gephardt Rule” requiring that the House clerk, when the House adopts the budget resolution for a fiscal year, automatically engross and transmit to the Senate a joint resolution increasing the public debt limit as specified in the budget resolution. For a review of the operation of the rule and various amendments to the rule, see [Cong. Rsch. Serv., RL31913, Debt Limit Legislation: The House “Gephardt Rule” (Feb. 13, 2019).
(4) Pub. L. No. 90-39 also amended Sec. 21 of the Second Liberty Bond Act to increase the limitation automatically, beginning July 1, 1968, and each July 1 thereafter for the period beginning July 1 and ending June 29 of each succeeding calendar year by $7 billion. However, this provision was superseded by subsequent amendments to the debt limit.
(5) Second Liberty Bond Act of 1917, Pub. L. No. 43, Sept. 24, 1917, authorized the Secretary of the Treasury, with the approval of the President, to borrow on the credit of the United States “to meet expenditures authorized for the national security and defense and other public purposes authorized by law, not exceeding…$7,538,945,460,” [https://uscode.house.gov/statviewer.htm?volume=40&page=288].