The federal budget deficit totaled $1.97 trillion in the first 11 months of the 2025 fiscal year, which began last October, the Treasury Department reported Thursday in its monthly statement.
It was the third-largest 11-month deficit on record, surpassed only by the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, according to a Treasury official who briefed reporters.
In the month of August, the deficit came to $345 billion, with revenues of $344 billion and outlays of $689 billion.
The revenues include nearly $30 billion from tariffs, a reflection of President Trump’s trade policy that places significant new levies on imports from countries all around the world. Relative to a year ago, before Trump’s policy was put in place, tariff revenues last month were about 300% higher.
Treasury estimates that the final deficit for the full 2025 fiscal year will be a bit lower than the 11-month tally, ending below the $2 trillion mark.
“With one month left in fiscal 2025, we expect the deficit for the year to come in at $1.78 trillion, reflecting the fact that September is typically a surplus month due to strong estimated individual and corporate income tax collections," Oxford Economics economist Nancy Vanden Houten said in a research note.