Budget functions by federal outlays

Medicare accounted for more federal outlays than any other budget function in FY2026, $1.7 trillion, reported by 2 agencies.

American Factbook Research

All 18 budget functions, by outlays · FY2026

All 18 budget functions, by outlays, FY2026
Rank	Name	USD	Agencies reporting
1	Medicare	$1,705,094,669,272	2
2	Social Security	$1,453,788,991,305	1
3	Net Interest	$1,179,842,529,413	1
4	National Defense	$1,174,220,949,606	10
5	Health	$967,547,380,357	12
6	Income Security	$639,386,640,521	13
7	General Government	$419,605,459,707	21
8	Veterans Benefits and Services	$383,166,534,955	7
9	Administration of Justice	$215,611,808,829	12
10	Education, Training, Employment, and Social Services	$152,966,660,048	19
11	Transportation	$137,241,207,180	6
12	Natural Resources and Environment	$84,669,553,916	13
13	Agriculture	$60,670,215,068	2
14	Community and Regional Development	$59,830,192,348	16
15	International Affairs	$47,824,059,016	17
16	Commerce and Housing Credit	$40,635,510,151	14
17	General Science, Space, and Technology	$34,944,544,359	3
18	Energy	$26,921,318,728	5

The fiscal year is not over. These are obligations recorded so far, and a figure here is not comparable with a full year.
An obligation is a binding commitment to pay, not money paid. Outlays are reported separately and the two are never equal in the same year.
A budget function is the purpose heading an account sits under, assigned when the account is created. It says what the money is for in the budget’s own terms, which is not always what a reader would call the purpose.
These are summed across the agencies that report each function, so the count of agencies beside a function is how many contributed to it, not how many exist.
The account data behind this begins at FY2017 and is a different collection from the award records the rest of this hub is built on.

USAspending API v2 — dimension aggregations — U.S. Department of the Treasury, Bureau of the Fiscal Service · U.S. Government work, public domain (17 U.S.C. 105) · retrieved September 19, 2026

Last updated September 19, 2026