What the world’s banks lend to United States

Cross-border claims on United States, Q4 1977–Q4 2025

LBS cross-border claims of all reporting banks on United States, in USD trillions, quarterly. The GFC and COVID quarters this series covers are shaded. This is the residence view, where a claim counts by where the lending bank sits, so a claim on United States booked from any reporting jurisdiction is included.

Source: BIS Locational Banking Statistics (WS_LBS_D_PUB), BIS Data Portal (data.bis.org). Selection: cross-border claims (measure C), all reporting countries (5A) vs United States as counterparty, all instruments, all currencies, all counterparty sectors, quarterly, amounts outstanding. License: free with “Source: BIS” attribution. Values shown in USD trillions; raw BIS unit is USD millions. Methodology

Consolidated claims by bank nationality

CBS international claims on United States in Q4 2025, broken out by the nationality of the lending banks (where the parent is headquartered, worldwide-consolidated, immediate-counterparty basis). The top 5 reporting banking systems shown account for $4.61T of the $5.85T consolidated total. This is a different measure from the residence-based claims above and is not additive with them.

Source: BIS Consolidated Banking Statistics (WS_CBS_PUB), BIS Data Portal (data.bis.org). Selection: international claims (measure I, domestic banks 4B, immediate-counterparty basis F), individual reporting banking system by nationality vs United States as counterparty, latest quarter, amounts outstanding. License: free with “Source: BIS” attribution. CBS carries claims only; it has no liabilities measure by design. Methodology

Who holds U.S. Treasuries

Treasury International Capital adds the securities-holder view that the BIS banking datasets do not carry. In May 2026, this selection carries 60 current country lines. Treasury’s own All Countries line is $9,279.1B, which runs above the sum of those named lines because it also covers countries Treasury does not break out separately, and the published Grand Total is $9,371.1B because that further includes international and regional organizations. The table ranks the top ten current holders and their change since December 2019.

Current top holders over time

Monthly total Treasury holdings, USD billions, for the current top five holders from Feb 2003 to May 2026. Japan peaked at $1,325.5B in Nov 2021, China, Mainland at $1,320.3B in Jul 2011, and the United Kingdom set its current series high of $948.6B in May 2026.

Source: U.S. Treasury, Treasury International Capital (TIC), Table 3: U.S. Treasury Securities Held by Foreign Residents Selection: tic_slt current country-level for_treas_pos_* series only, monthly foreign portfolio holdings of U.S. Treasury securities (long-term and short-term combined), excluding Treasury aggregates (Grand Total, All Countries, Foreign Official, Foreign Non-Official, Euro Area, European Union, and Total *) plus stale discontinued composite lines whose last observation predates May 2026. 60 current country series remain; the table ranks the top ten and the chart tracks the current top five. Note: Values shown in USD billions; raw TIC unit is millions of dollars. TIC attributes holdings by custodial location, not beneficial ownership, so the United Kingdom, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Cayman Islands can overstate their own holdings. Methodology