U.S. household debt reached a record $18.8 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2025, up $4.6 trillion compared to the end of 2019, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit.
Mortgage balances account for the largest share of that total, topping $13.6 trillion. Non-housing debt — which includes student loans, credit cards, auto loans, and personal loans — reached $5.17 trillion, up 1.6% from the third quarter.
At $1.28 trillion, credit card balances were up 5.5% from a year earlier — a record high in data the New York Fed has tracked since 1999. The share of outstanding debt in delinquency reached 4.8% during the fourth quarter, a gain of 0.3 percentage points over the previous three-month period.
The debt growth is happening even as wages have risen. Economists cited by Yahoo Finance point to a structural squeeze: the personal savings rate has slipped from 6.2% to 4.0%, and elevated borrowing costs alongside surging housing and healthcare expenses are outpacing whatever wage growth households have managed to accumulate.
Stress on household balance sheets is becoming visible across multiple debt categories. Student loan balances reached $1.66 trillion in the fourth quarter, up $11 billion from the prior quarter, and 9.6% of student loan borrowers were at least 90 days delinquent. The Trump administration restarted federal student loan repayment in 2025, sending almost nine million borrowers into default, according to the Century Foundation.
Mortgage delinquencies also rose across conventional, VA, and FHA loan types in the fourth quarter. The FHA delinquency rate — covering loans that tend to serve lower-income and first-time buyers — reached 11.52%, up 74 basis points from the prior quarter. Marina Walsh, the Mortgage Bankers Association's VP of industry analysis, said comparable levels last appeared around 2012.
The strain is not confined to lower-income households. A St. Louis Fed analysis found that delinquency rates in the lowest-income ZIP codes climbed to 22.8% by the first quarter of 2025, up from 14.9% in the third quarter of 2022. But even the highest-income ZIP codes saw their delinquency rate jump from 4.8% to 8.3% over the same period.
Broken down per household, CNBC calculates the $18.8 trillion figure represents roughly $154,152 in debt per American household. Among generational cohorts, Gen X $TWTR holds the heaviest debt burden on average, though that number ticked lower compared with 2024 as the generation moves through mortgage payoff and post-college phases of household finance. Gen Z posted the sharpest year-over-year jump, reflecting the cohort's entry into higher education completion and first-time home purchases.