The federal budget deficit totaled $1.3 trillion in the first nine months of fiscal year 2025, the Congressional Budget Office estimates. That amount is $65 billion more than the deficit recorded during the same period last fiscal year. Revenues increased by $254 billion (or 7 percent), and outlays rose by $320 billion (or 6 percent).

The change in the deficit was influenced by the timing of outlays. Fiscal year 2024 outlays were reduced because payments that were due on October 1, 2023, a Sunday, were shifted into the prior fiscal year. (Those payments were made in September 2023.) If not for that shift, the deficit so far this fiscal year would have been $7 billion (or 1 percent) less than the shortfall at this point last year.

H.R. 1, the 2025 reconciliation legislation signed by the President on July 4, 2025, increased the debt limit by $5 trillion. CBO will discuss its estimates of the budget and economic effects of that law in the next edition of The Budget and Economic Outlook.