- Prior was -95.0B
- Last Feb was -137B
- The fiscal year-to-date deficit is $1.004 trillion vs $1.147 trillion a year earlier
- Outlays $621B vs $603B a year earlier
- Receipts $313B vs $296B a year earlier
- Net customs receipts of $26.59B
When you factor in the tariff refunds that are coming, the deficit is on track to break the prior year. The war expense won’t help either, though it’s fairly negligible in the US scale. There could be some positive accounting around the SPR release but it will eventually need to be refilled.
The Monthly Treasury Statement, published by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, provides a detailed accounting of federal government receipts, outlays, and the resulting surplus or deficit for each month. It serves as the primary source for tracking the fiscal health of the federal government in real time.
In January 2026 — the fourth month of fiscal year 2026 — the federal government recorded a deficit of approximately $95 billion, a $34 billion improvement from the $129 billion deficit in January of the prior fiscal year. However, the comparison is complicated by timing shifts: February 1 fell on a weekend in both years, pushing certain payments, mostly Medicare-related, into January.
Through the first four months of FY2026 (October through January), the cumulative deficit stood at roughly $696 billion, about $143 billion less than over the same stretch in FY2025. Adjusting for payment timing shifts, the improvement was slightly larger at $152 billion.
On the revenue side, January receipts rose by $47 billion year over year, driven largely by a $20 billion surge in customs duties — reflecting the tariff increases enacted in 2025 — and a $12 billion increase in individual income tax collections. On the spending side, outlays were $13 billion higher than in January of the prior year, with Social Security and Medicare accounting for the bulk of the increase, partially offset by a $5 billion decline in net interest costs.
Despite the year-over-year improvement, the FY2026 four-month deficit ranked as the third largest in the past six years, underscoring the continued structural pressures from rising entitlement spending, elevated interest costs, and insufficient revenue growth relative to outlays.
This article was written by Adam Button at investinglive.com.
