The federal government ran a deficit of $409 billion in October, the first month of fiscal 2027, the Congressional Budget Office estimated on Nov. 9 in its Monthly Budget Review. The October deficit was $125 billion larger than a year earlier.
That works out to about $13.2 billion a day, or about $550 million an hour, a calculation from the CBO figure. Part of the jump is a calendar quirk. The rest comes from interest costs and tariff refunds, and those will not go away next month.
What Drove the October Deficit
Revenue fell $36 billion from October 2025 and spending rose $89 billion, CBO said. Some payments due Nov. 1 in both years were moved into October because the date fell on a weekend. Without those timing shifts, outlays rose $95 billion and the deficit grew $131 billion. The calendar adjustment cuts both ways, and that is the fair case for treating one month with caution. CBO’s adjusted figure is slightly worse than the raw one.
Interest Costs and Tariff Refunds
The fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 shows where the pressure is coming from. CBO puts the fiscal 2026 deficit at $2.0 trillion, up $217 billion, or 12%, from the year before. Net interest on the debt reached $1.142 trillion, up 11%. Customs duties brought in $173 billion, down 11%. After the Supreme Court ruled against the tariffs in February 2026, Customs and Border Protection refunded about $126 billion in duties plus interest, CBO said. Set side by side, the government spent about 6.6 times as much on interest as it collected in customs duties, a calculation from CBO’s figures.
The refunds alone equaled about 73% of the year’s customs revenue. Net interest of $1.142 trillion comes to about $3.1 billion a day, a calculation from CBO’s annual figure. That is roughly a quarter of October’s daily borrowing, spent before the government pays for anything else. October alone produced about 20% of the full fiscal 2026 deficit, a calculation from the two CBO figures.
What Budget Watchers Said
Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said the first month set the tone. “We are just one month into the new fiscal year, and astonishingly we have already borrowed $409 billion,” she said in a statement. “If today’s deficit numbers make anything clear, it is that inaction is not an option,” MacGuineas said.
The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark rate by a quarter point on Sept. 17, so new borrowing now costs more than it did a year ago, and every month at this pace adds to next year’s interest bill. The Treasury Department’s monthly statement will give the official October figure.
