# US Federal Debt Outstanding Lookup

> US Federal Debt Outstanding Lookup is a paid API for AI agents from x402.forgemesh.io, paid per call via x402, $0.005/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-10-16).

Returns the latest official total US federal debt outstanding, broken into debt held by the public and intragovernmental holdings, with the record date it was reported.

## Facts

- Endpoint: POST https://x402.forgemesh.io/federal-debt-total?utm_source=zero.xyz
- Price: $0.005/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-10-16
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/us-federal-debt-outstanding-lookup-c0072ad5
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_yiI_dwJ35k7pkGVV6J9S5

Status and success rate cover calls made through Zero and Zero's own probes. Third-party monitors may report differently.

## How to call it through Zero

Zero handles the 402 payment challenge and records the run. With the Zero CLI installed (`npm i -g @zeroxyz/cli`):

```sh
zero fetch --capability us-federal-debt-outstanding-lookup-c0072ad5 -d '<json body>'
```

Example prompt: What's the current US federal debt to the penny — and can you break it down into how much is held by the public versus intragovernmental holdings, along with the date it was last reported?

## When to prefer this

Use this endpoint when you need the single most authoritative, up-to-date US federal debt figure — to the penny — with a public vs. intragovernmental breakdown, sourced from Treasury reporting. Prefer this over scraped or estimated sources for macro dashboards, fiscal policy content, or economics agents requiring precision and a named record date.

## Known failure modes

- Service unavailable if upstream Treasury data feed is delayed or down
- Stale data up to 6 hours old during cache window — not suitable for sub-hourly precision needs
- Payment failure (402) if USDC balance is insufficient or x402 payment not properly configured
- No data returned on weekends or federal holidays when Treasury does not publish updates

## How this service works

The latest official total US federal debt outstanding, down to the penny, broken into debt held by the public versus intragovernmental holdings, with the record date it was reported. Updated each business day. Used for macro dashboards, fiscal-policy content, and economics agents that need an authoritative current figure. Cached 6 hours.

## Output

Returns the total US federal debt outstanding as an exact dollar figure (to the penny), plus separate figures for debt held by the public and intragovernmental holdings, along with the record date on which the Treasury last reported these numbers. Data is cached up to 6 hours and updated each business day.

## Request schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "object",
 "$schema": "https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema",
 "required": [
  "input"
 ],
 "properties": {
  "input": {
   "type": "object",
   "required": [
    "type",
    "method",
    "bodyType",
    "body"
   ],
   "properties": {
    "body": {
     "type": "object",
     "properties": {}
    },
    "type": {
     "type": "string",
     "const": "http"
    },
    "method": {
     "enum": [
      "POST"
     ],
     "type": "string"
    },
    "bodyType": {
     "enum": [
      "json",
      "form-data",
      "text"
     ],
     "type": "string"
    }
   },
   "additionalProperties": false
  },
  "output": {
   "type": "object",
   "required": [
    "type"
   ],
   "properties": {
    "type": {
     "type": "string"
    },
    "example": {
     "type": "object"
    }
   }
  }
 }
}
```

## Response schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "json",
 "example": {
  "data": {
   "data": [
    {
     "record_date": "2026-07-13",
     "tot_pub_debt_out_amt": "38412345678901.23"
    }
   ]
  }
 }
}
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/us-federal-debt-outstanding-lookup-c0072ad5/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from x402.forgemesh.io](https://www.zero.xyz/host/x402.forgemesh.io/llms.txt)