Foreign investors hold record $39T in US assets, doubling since 2022

Foreign investors now hold $39.19 trillion in US long-term securities, according to data from the US Treasury International Capital system. That figure has climbed by roughly $16 trillion since 2022, a pace of accumulation that would have seemed improbable just a few years ago. To put the scale in perspective, the increase alone is larger than the entire GDP of China. And it happened in roughly four years. What’s driving the flood of capital The surge reflects a confluence of forces that have made American assets the gravitational center of global finance. US equity markets have been on a historic run, and foreign investors have chased that performance aggressively, with overseas holdings of American stocks frequently reaching $19 trillion to $22 trillion in recent assessments. Debt markets have pulled their weight too. Foreign holdings of US Treasuries reached approximately $9.2 to $9.3 trillion by early 2026, representing about 31% of all publicly held federal debt. That means nearly a third of America’s borrowing is bankrolled by investors outside its borders. The largest concentrations of foreign-held US securities come from a familiar roster: the Cayman Islands, the United Kin...