February 2026 CBO Outlook: $1.9 Trillion Deficit
What Fiscal Lab pages report from CBO's Budget and Economic Outlook: 2026 to 2036.
On February 11, 2026, CBO published the Budget and Economic Outlook. These Fiscal Lab pages describe that baseline. They do not replace the CBO document.
Deficit, debt, and growth
The preliminary review reports:
- The 2026 deficit reaches $1.9 trillion, 5.8% of GDP, and $3.1 trillion, 6.7% of GDP, by 2036.
- Debt held by the public rises from 101% of GDP to 120% by 2036, above the prior record of 106% after World War II, and to 175% by 2056 in the long-term illustration.
- The cumulative 2026-2035 deficit was revised from $21.8 trillion to $23.1 trillion. The revision includes an additional $3.4 trillion in projected deficits, largely from the OBBBA, $0.7 trillion in interest, and a partly offsetting $2.7 trillion in revenue, largely from tariffs.
- Real GDP growth rises to 2.2% in 2026 from 1.9% in 2025, then slows to an average of 1.8% a year.
Interest rates in that baseline
Interest Rates Rising Above CBO Projections says the February 2026 baseline put the 10-year Treasury note at 4.06% in the first quarter of 2026 and 4.09% in the second. Actual rates were 4.20% and 4.42%. If rates stay above that baseline, outlays would increase by nearly $1.3 trillion over FY 2026-2036.
A $4 trillion shift, on video
CBO Outlook Update: A $4 Trillion Shift in the Fiscal Outlook is a video on that revision. The page itself is the video, not a written table.
Related: What's Missing from the Baseline notes that CBO's 90% interval for nominal GDP growth runs from 1.8% to 6.7%, a 10-year span of $36.9 trillion to $59.6 trillion, and that Social Security is about 24% of outlays in the budget window.