Where the Money Went · September 2026

Department by department, recipient by recipient.

Every federal contract, grant, loan, and direct payment in September 2026, traced from the awarding department to the named recipient. Company names appear exactly as filed in USAspending. Individuals receiving benefits are shown as program totals only, never by name.

Data gap: Department of Defense contract transactions are largely missing from the USAspending API for this period (a reporting feed gap, not a real spending drop). DoD is normally the largest contract obligor by far. Department rankings below exclude meaningful DoD data.

Awarded in September 2026

$110.1B

Contracts $55.5B · Grants $52.1B · Loans and direct $2.48B

Largest single award, September 2026

$7.50B

TEXAS OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR · Department of Homeland Security

Data vintage

2026-09-01 to 2026-09-30

Action dates · Pulled 2026-10-07 · Sourced from USAspending.gov

How to read this page: expand a department to see its largest individual awards. Amounts are net obligations recorded in the period (money committed, not cash out the door). Every recipient name is spelled exactly as it appears in the official record, linked to its USAspending entry.

Contracts: $55.5B

Vintage: 2026-09-01 to 2026-09-30 (action dates) · 66 awarding departments · award types A, B, C, D

Grants: $52.1B

Vintage: 2026-09-01 to 2026-09-30 (action dates) · 19 awarding departments · award types 02, 03, 04, 05

Loans and direct payments: $2.48B

Vintage: 2026-09-01 to 2026-09-30 (action dates) · 14 awarding departments · award types 07, 08, 09, 10, 11

Money going abroad

Vintage: 2026-09-01 to 2026-09-30 (action dates) · largest State Department and USAID awards (the main foreign-aid channels) · Sourced from USAspending.gov

Recipient	Amount	Agency	Sub-agency	Date
UNITED NATIONS ADDITIONAL FUNDS FOR A UN PAYMENT FOR CALENDAR YEAR 2024 AND 2025	$725.0M	Department of State	Department of State	2026-09-09
CADDELL CONSTRUCTION CO. (DE), LLC DESIGN BUILD CONSTRUCTION SERVICE FOR US EMBASSY ULAANBAATAR	$484.2M	Department of State	Department of State	2026-09-02
PCL CONSTRUCTION INC THE PURPOSE OF THIS BILATERAL MODIFICATION IS TO INCORPORATE THE CONSTRUCTION PACKAGES AND CHANGES AS PART OF THE PROGRESSIVE DB CONTRACT	$445.9M	Department of State	International Boundary and Water Commission: U.S.-Mexico	2026-09-29
FAMILY HEALTH INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT PARTNER COUNTRIES ACROSS DIVERSE GEOGRAPHIC AND EPIDEMIOLOGICAL CONTEXTS IN DEVELOPING AND IMPLEMENTING HIGH-IMPACT, INTEGRATED HEALTH PROGRAMS THAT STR	$323.7M	Department of State	Department of State	2026-09-24
UNICEF THE PROJECT AIMS TO SAVE LIVES AND PROTECT THE WELLBEING OF CRISIS-AFFECTED CHILDREN, WOMEN, AND FAMILIES BY DELIVERING TIMELY, EQUITABLE, AND COORDINATED LIFES	$218.7M	Department of State	Department of State	2026-09-18
DOMESTIC AWARDEES (UNDISCLOSED) SPARC - SECURING POWER, ADVANCING RESILIENCE & CONNECTIVITY (SPARC) ACTIVITY	$174.0M	Agency for International Development	Agency for International Development	2026-09-11
ABT GLOBAL LLC TO SUSTAIN MALARIA VECTOR CONTROL, HIV PREVENTION AND TREATMENT AND LAB STRENGTHENING ACTIVITIES ACROSS 14 PRIORITY COUNTRIES.	$156.7M	Department of State	Department of State	2026-09-11
UNITED NATIONS OFFICE FOR THE COORDINATION OF HUMANITARIAN AFFAIRS UN-OCHA POOLED FUND CONTRIBUTION FOR EL SALVADOR, GUATEMALA, HONDURAS, AND CHAD.	$145.0M	Department of State	Department of State	2026-09-03

Benefit programs: totals, not names

Social Security, Medicare, veterans benefits, and similar programs pay individuals directly. USAspending does not publish recipient-level data for these, and neither do we. Below are the program totals from the Daily Treasury Statement, FY2025.

Social Security benefit payments

$116.5B/month avg

About 75 million beneficiaries: retirees, survivors, and disabled workers

Average retired worker's check was $2,071/month (January 2026), paid by direct deposit.

FY2025, September 30, 2025 Daily Treasury Statement

Medicare

$97.0B/month avg

About 68 million Medicare enrollees

Reached through hospitals, doctors, Medicare Advantage insurers, and Part D drug plans.

FY2025, September 30, 2025 Daily Treasury Statement

Medicaid grants to states

$55.5B/month avg

About 68.0 million Medicaid enrollees plus 7.2 million CHIP (January 2026)

Federal matching funds go to state programs, which pay hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, and managed care plans.

FY2025, September 30, 2025 Daily Treasury Statement

Veterans benefits

$17.0B/month avg

Veterans and their survivors

Disability compensation, pensions, and related payments.

FY2025, September 30, 2025 Daily Treasury Statement

Food assistance (SNAP)

$8.84B/month avg

Participating households

Benefits loaded onto EBT cards, spent at grocery retailers.

FY2025, September 30, 2025 Daily Treasury Statement

Military active duty pay

$8.77B/month avg

Active duty service members

Paychecks to the active duty force.

FY2025, September 30, 2025 Daily Treasury Statement

Military retirement pay

$5.95B/month avg

Military retirees and survivors

Monthly retired pay and survivor benefits.

FY2025, September 30, 2025 Daily Treasury Statement

Federal civilian payroll

$21.0B/month avg

Civilian federal workforce

Electronic payments to civilian employees.

FY2025, September 30, 2025 Daily Treasury Statement

Benefit aggregates: FY2025 Daily Treasury Statement lines, via the Ledger's research brief. Sourced from U.S. Treasury data.

Interest on the debt

Interest on the national debt

$609.2B FY2025 cash

Holders of Treasury securities worldwide

Cash interest Treasury paid in FY2025. About 30 cents of every dollar goes abroad, to $9.25 trillion in foreign held Treasuries (July 2026). Largest foreign holders: Japan ($1.104T), the United Kingdom ($998B), mainland China ($618B). Domestic holders include mutual funds, banks, money market funds, pension funds, insurers, and households through TreasuryDirect. The Federal Reserve holds $4.49T but currently remits nothing due to past losses.

FY2025, September 30, 2025 Daily Treasury Statement; foreign holdings July 2026 Treasury International Capital

Sourced from U.S. Treasury data.

Notes and caveats

DATA GAP: Department of Defense contract transactions are largely missing from the USAspending API for 2026-09-01 to 2026-09-30 (only ~$158.4M returned). This is a reporting/feed gap, not a real spending drop. DoD is normally the largest contract obligor by far. Treat DoD as missing data in the rankings below.

Photo credits

VA Medical Center entrance photo by Gabriel Vanslette, CC-BY, via Wikimedia Commons.
Analytical laboratory photo by Hey Paul, CC-BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Hoover Dam Bypass bridge construction photo by the Federal Highway Administration, CC-BY, via Wikimedia Commons.
Falcon 9 launch photo by NASA/Joel Kowsky, public domain. MQ-9 Reaper photo by the U.S. Air Force, public domain. Border barrier installation photo by Michael Glasch, public domain.
All government seals are public domain works of the U.S. federal government or state governments, via Wikimedia Commons. Corporate logos are trademarks of their respective owners, shown in editorial context.

Sources and method

Award transactions come from the USAspending.gov public API, filtered by action date to 2026-09-01 to 2026-09-30 (action dates). Figures are net federal action obligations per transaction. Recipient names are reproduced exactly as filed; descriptions are truncated for display with the full text on the linked USAspending record. Benefit and interest aggregates are FY2025 Daily Treasury Statement withdrawal lines. This page refreshes monthly.