alterlab-usfiscaldata

U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data API

Free, open REST API from the U.S. Department of the Treasury for federal financial data. No API key or registration required.

Base URL: https://api.fiscaldata.treasury.gov/services/api/fiscal_service

The catalog held 56 datasets / 183 data tables when checked on 2026-09-23; browse https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/ for the current list and each table's endpoint version (v1 or v2).

When to Use This Skill

• Federal debt (Debt to the Penny, historical debt outstanding, schedules of federal debt)
• Daily and Monthly Treasury Statements: operating cash balance, deposits/withdrawals, receipts, outlays, deficit
• Treasury securities auctions (results and upcoming), average interest rates, interest expense
• Treasury Reporting Rates of Exchange, savings bonds, I bond rates

Does NOT Trigger

Scenario	Use Instead
Market yields (DGS10), Fed funds, or macro series by FRED ID with transformations	alterlab-fred
Market quotes or daily FX/crypto prices from a commercial feed	alterlab-alpha-vantage
Hedge-fund leverage or repo-market aggregates (Form PF, FICC)	alterlab-hedgefund-monitor
Company filings and financial statements from SEC EDGAR	alterlab-edgartools

Quick Start

import requests
import pandas as pd

BASE_URL = "https://api.fiscaldata.treasury.gov/services/api/fiscal_service"

# Get the current national debt (Debt to the Penny)
resp = requests.get(f"{BASE_URL}/v2/accounting/od/debt_to_penny", params={
    "sort": "-record_date",
    "page[size]": 1
})
data = resp.json()["data"][0]
print(f"Total public debt as of {data['record_date']}: ${float(data['tot_pub_debt_out_amt']):,.0f}")

# Get Treasury exchange rates for recent quarters
resp = requests.get(f"{BASE_URL}/v1/accounting/od/rates_of_exchange", params={
    "fields": "country_currency_desc,exchange_rate,record_date",
    "filter": "record_date:gte:2024-01-01",
    "sort": "-record_date",
    "page[size]": 100
})
df = pd.DataFrame(resp.json()["data"])

Authentication

None required. The API is fully open and free.

Core Parameters

Parameter	Example	Description
fields=	fields=record_date,tot_pub_debt_out_amt	Select specific columns
filter=	filter=record_date:gte:2024-01-01	Filter records
sort=	sort=-record_date	Sort (prefix - for descending)
format=	format=json	Output format: json, csv, xml
page[size]=	page[size]=100	Records per page (default 100, max 10000)
page[number]=	page[number]=2	Page index (starts at 1)

Filter operators: lt, lte, gt, gte, eq, in

# Multiple filters separated by comma
"filter=country_currency_desc:in:(Canada-Dollar,Mexico-Peso),record_date:gte:2024-01-01"

Key Datasets & Endpoints

Debt

Dataset	Endpoint	Frequency
Debt to the Penny	/v2/accounting/od/debt_to_penny	Daily
Historical Debt Outstanding	/v2/accounting/od/debt_outstanding	Annual
Schedules of Federal Debt	/v1/accounting/od/schedules_fed_debt	Monthly

Daily & Monthly Statements

Dataset	Endpoint	Frequency
DTS Operating Cash Balance	/v1/accounting/dts/operating_cash_balance	Daily
DTS Deposits & Withdrawals	/v1/accounting/dts/deposits_withdrawals_operating_cash	Daily
Monthly Treasury Statement (MTS)	/v1/accounting/mts/mts_table_1 (16 tables)	Monthly

Interest Rates & Exchange

Dataset	Endpoint	Frequency
Average Interest Rates on Treasury Securities	/v2/accounting/od/avg_interest_rates	Monthly
Treasury Reporting Rates of Exchange	/v1/accounting/od/rates_of_exchange	Quarterly
Interest Expense on Public Debt	/v2/accounting/od/interest_expense	Monthly

Securities & Auctions

Dataset	Endpoint	Frequency
Treasury Securities Auctions Data	/v1/accounting/od/auctions_query	As Needed
Treasury Securities Upcoming Auctions	/v1/accounting/od/upcoming_auctions	As Needed
Average Interest Rates	/v2/accounting/od/avg_interest_rates	Monthly

Savings Bonds

Dataset	Endpoint	Frequency
I Bonds Interest Rates	/v1/accounting/od/i_bonds_interest_rates	Semi-Annual
U.S. Treasury Savings Bonds: Issues, Redemptions & Maturities	/v1/accounting/od/savings_bonds_report	Monthly

Response Structure

{
  "data": [...],
  "meta": {
    "count": 100,
    "total-count": 3790,
    "total-pages": 38,
    "labels": {"field_name": "Human Readable Label"},
    "dataTypes": {"field_name": "STRING|NUMBER|DATE|CURRENCY"},
    "dataFormats": {"field_name": "String|10.2|YYYY-MM-DD"}
  },
  "links": {"self": "...", "first": "...", "prev": null, "next": "...", "last": "..."}
}

Note: All values are returned as strings. Convert as needed (e.g., float(), pd.to_datetime()). Null values appear as the string "null".

Common Patterns

Load all pages into a DataFrame

def fetch_all_pages(endpoint, params=None):
    params = dict(params or {})
    params["page[size]"] = 10000  # the API maximum; larger values return HTTP 400
    params["page[number]"] = 1
    rows = []
    while True:
        resp = requests.get(f"{BASE_URL}{endpoint}", params=params, timeout=60)
        resp.raise_for_status()
        result = resp.json()
        rows.extend(result["data"])
        if params["page[number]"] >= result["meta"]["total-pages"]:
            break
        params["page[number]"] += 1
    return pd.DataFrame(rows)

Aggregation (automatic sum)

Omitting grouping fields triggers automatic aggregation:

# Sum all deposits/withdrawals by record_date and transaction type
resp = requests.get(f"{BASE_URL}/v1/accounting/dts/deposits_withdrawals_operating_cash", params={
    "fields": "record_date,transaction_type,transaction_today_amt"
})

Reference Files

• api-basics.md — URL structure, HTTP methods, versioning, data types
• parameters.md — All parameters with detailed examples and edge cases
• datasets-debt.md — Debt datasets: Debt to the Penny, Historical Debt, Schedules of Federal Debt, TROR
• datasets-fiscal.md — Daily Treasury Statement, Monthly Treasury Statement, revenue, spending
• datasets-interest-rates.md — Average interest rates, exchange rates, TIPS/CPI, certified interest rates
• datasets-securities.md — Treasury auctions, savings bonds, SLGS, buybacks
• response-format.md — Response objects, error handling, pagination, response codes
• examples.md — Python, R, and pandas code examples for common use cases

Cite the dataset name, table, and retrieval date (Fiscal Data values are revised; keep the record_date you used).

Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.