About OpenSpending
Why This Exists
The federal government spends over $11 trillion every year. That's $34,000 for every man, woman, and child in America — more than most families earn. Yet most Americans have no idea where it goes.
We built OpenSpending because we believe transparency isn't optional — it's the foundation of accountability. The data is all public, published by the government itself on USASpending.gov. But it's buried in spreadsheets, hidden behind jargon, and scattered across dozens of agencies.
We took that data and made it accessible. Every chart, every table, every analysis on this site exists for one reason: so you can see exactly where your tax dollars go, and decide for yourself whether it's money well spent.
This is your money. You deserve to see it.
OpenSpending is an independent, data-driven site tracking federal government spending. We use USASpending.gov as our primary data source — the U.S. Treasury's official record of federal spending — to bring transparency to how $11.2 trillion in taxpayer money is spent each year. With 60+ pages of analysis, tools, and data, we cover everything from individual contractor deep dives to county-level spending breakdowns, international spending by country, product & service categories, grant recipients, and interactive tax calculators.
Our mission is simple: taxpayers fund the government, and they deserve to see exactly where that money goes — without needing a PhD in public policy to understand it.
Who Built This
OpenSpending is built by TheDataProject.ai — an AI-powered data journalism initiative focused on making public data accessible, understandable, and actionable. We use AI tools to process, analyze, and present large government datasets that would otherwise require teams of analysts to parse.
What You'll Find
OpenSpending covers every major angle of federal spending across 60+ pages of interactive charts, sortable tables, and editorial analysis.
Interactive Tools
- Tax Calculator — See exactly where your tax dollars go
- Shutdown Calculator — What a government shutdown costs per day
- Compare — Side-by-side comparison of agencies, contractors, and states
- Search — Search across all agencies, contractors, states, and industries
- Data Downloads — Download all datasets in JSON format for your own research
Deep Dives & Investigations
- DOGE Reality Check — Are DOGE cuts delivering real savings?
- Contractor Monopoly — How a handful of companies dominate federal contracts
- Interest Time Bomb — The growing cost of interest on the national debt
- State Dependency — Which states depend most on federal spending
- Spending Explosion — Federal spending growth over the past decade
- Your Tax Bill — What the average taxpayer funds
- US vs. World — How US spending compares globally
- National Debt — Debt clock, trends, and projections
- Pentagon Spending — Defense Department spending analysis
- Healthcare Spending — Federal healthcare spending analysis
- No-Bid Nation — $74B+ in contracts awarded without competitive bidding
- Waste & Fraud — $233–521B per year lost to fraud and improper payments
- COVID Spending — The pandemic spending tsunami and where the money went
- USAID — Budget explosion from $15B to $50B and the 100 largest awards
- Foreign Aid — Federal spending by country, with 50+ nations tracked
- Efficiency — Government efficiency metrics and benchmarks
The Data
- Federal Spending Analysis — Overall federal spending patterns and breakdowns
- Top 10 Contractors — Individual deep dives on the 10 biggest federal contractors
- Spending Trends — 9 years of budget and contract trend data (FY2017–2026)
- How Contracts Work — Explainer on the federal contracting process
- All Agencies — 97 federal agencies with budgets, obligations, and outlays
- All Contractors — 40+ top federal contractors with detail pages and trend data
- All Industries — Top 50 NAICS industries by contract spending with detail pages
- States — 54 states and territories with contract spending breakdowns
- Largest Contracts — The 100 biggest individual federal contract awards
- Counties — Federal spending flowing to counties across America
- Countries — International federal spending across 50+ countries
- Products & Services — Federal procurement by product and service category
- Grant Recipients — Top federal grant recipients with detail pages
Editorial Perspective
OpenSpending takes a libertarian lens on federal spending. We believe taxpayers deserve full transparency into how their money is spent — and we're skeptical that bigger budgets automatically mean better outcomes.
We support efforts like DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency) to bring accountability and transparency to federal spending. When budgets triple in under a decade, when ten companies capture the majority of federal contract dollars, when billions flow overseas with minimal oversight — those are stories worth telling.
We let the data speak for itself, but we don't shy from calling out waste when we see it. Our goal isn't partisan — it's accountability. The numbers don't belong to any party. They belong to you.
“Built for taxpayers who want to know where their money goes.”
Sister Sites
OpenSpending is part of a family of public data transparency projects by TheDataProject.ai.
Data Sources
- USASpending.gov — Our primary data source for all spending figures. We pull data via the USASpending API and bulk download files maintained by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. This includes contracts, grants, agency budgets, and individual award transactions.
- Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) — GDP data and economic context for spending-as-percentage-of-GDP comparisons and global benchmarking.
- U.S. Census Bureau — Population data and state-level demographics for per-capita spending calculations.
- Congressional Budget Office (CBO) — Budget projections, debt forecasts, and fiscal analysis used in our national debt and interest coverage.
- Treasury Fiscal Data — National debt, revenue, and budget execution data from the U.S. Treasury.
- GAO Report GAO-24-105833 — Government Accountability Office report on fraud and improper payments across federal programs.
Methodology
We pull data from the USASpending API and pre-process it into static JSON files for fast, reliable delivery. No server-side queries or database calls — just clean, pre-computed data served directly to your browser.
Fiscal Year 2025 runs from October 1, 2024 through September 30, 2025. Most figures reflect obligations (legally binding commitments to spend) rather than actual cash outlays, as obligations are the most current measure of spending activity.
Contractor deduplication: Many large contractors operate through subsidiaries that appear as separate entities in federal data. For example, Lockheed Martin, Sikorsky Aircraft, and Rotary Wing all roll up to the same parent company. Our deduplicated dataset merges subsidiaries under their parent company using USASpending's UEI (Unique Entity Identifier) hierarchy to give a more accurate picture of contractor concentration.
All dollar amounts are nominal (not inflation-adjusted). Rankings are based on total obligated amounts unless otherwise noted.
Open Source
OpenSpending is built with Next.js, TypeScript, and Tailwind CSS, with interactive charts powered by Recharts. The site is deployed on Vercel.
All underlying data is public and sourced from USASpending.gov. We believe government spending data should be easy to access, easy to understand, and impossible to ignore.
Download the Data
All of our datasets are available for free download in JSON format. Use them for your own research, journalism, or analysis.
Browse All Datasets →Update Frequency
Data is refreshed periodically from USASpending.gov. Federal spending data is updated daily by the Treasury Department, but we typically refresh our datasets monthly to ensure stability and accuracy. Major updates coincide with fiscal year milestones (quarterly and year-end).
Current data reflects Fiscal Year 2025 (October 2024 – September 2025). Historical trends cover FY2017–FY2025.
Contact
OpenSpending is a project of TheDataProject.ai. For questions, corrections, media inquiries, or partnership opportunities, reach out through our main site.
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