Every dollar spent servicing the national debt is a dollar that buys no health care, no defence, no policing, and no child benefit. In 2024-25, the federal government paid $53.4 billion in gross public debt charges — more than the entire Canada Health Transfer to the provinces, and just over ten cents of every revenue dollar collected.
This page tracks two things: the fifty-year arc of how Canada's federal debt and its carrying cost got here, and how the annual debt-servicing bill now compares with the major budget line items Canadians can see and feel. The annual deficit this interest is paid on — and how Canada's shortfall ranks against its G7 peers — is covered on the companion Government deficit page; for the stock measure that drives this cost, see Debt-to-GDP.
Toggle between nominal dollars and share of GDP. Debt charges fell for a quarter-century — from a peak of $49.4B in 1995-96 to a low of $20.4B in 2020-21 — even as the debt itself grew, because interest rates kept falling. That cushion is gone.
Source: Department of Finance Canada, Fiscal Reference Tables, November 2025 (Tables 1, 13, 15). Federal debt = accumulated deficit; debt charges are gross public debt charges, Public Accounts basis.
The clearest way to grasp the size of the debt-servicing bill is to set it beside the budget lines Canadians know. The chart below tracks gross public debt charges over the past decade against five of the most significant federal expenditures: elderly benefits (OAS/GIS), the Canada Health Transfer, National Defence, the Canada Child Benefit, and the RCMP.
Sources: Finance Canada Fiscal Reference Tables (debt charges, elderly & children's benefits); Finance Canada major federal transfers (CHT); DND & RCMP Departmental Results Reports / Public Accounts (actual spending). All figures are nominal Public Accounts dollars for the fiscal year ended March 31.
| Rank | Budget line, 2024-25 | $ billions | Change since 2015-16 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Elderly benefits (OAS / GIS) | 80.3 | +77% |
| 2 | Public debt charges | 53.4 | +145% |
| 3 | Canada Health Transfer | 52.1 | +53% |
| 4 | National Defence | 33.9 | +82% |
| 5 | Canada Child Benefit | 28.6 | +59% |
| 6 | RCMP | 5.7 | +101% |
The takeaway. In 2024-25, servicing the federal debt cost more than the entire Canada Health Transfer ($53.4B vs. $52.1B), more than one and a half times the National Defence budget ($33.9B), nearly twice the Canada Child Benefit ($28.6B), and over nine times the RCMP ($5.7B). Only elderly benefits — the single largest federal program — cost more. Debt charges are also the fastest-growing line on this list: up 145% over the decade, and up 162% in just the four years since the 2020-21 low.
Debt charges fell for a quarter-century — from a peak of $49.4B in 1995-96 to a low of $20.4B in 2020-21 — even as the debt itself grew, because interest rates kept falling. That cushion is gone: charges hit $53.4B in 2024-25, a 162% increase in four years, as a doubled debt stock met normalized interest rates.
In 2024-25 Ottawa paid bondholders more ($53.4B) than it transferred to all ten provinces and three territories combined for health care ($52.1B). As recently as 2021-22, the CHT was nearly twice the debt-charge bill ($43.1B vs. $24.5B).
At 1.7% of GDP and 10.5 cents of every revenue dollar, today's burden remains well below the 1990-91 peak of 6.5% of GDP, when 37.6 cents of every revenue dollar went to debt service. But the debt stock has nearly doubled in dollar terms since 2018-19 ($685B → $1,266B; 30.7% → 41.2% of GDP), so the carrying cost is far more sensitive to interest rates than at any time since the late 1990s.
Gross public debt charges are the line presented in the budget's expense table and the figure used in public debate ("debt charges now exceed the CHT"). Net charges subtract the government's return on its own investments, which is real money but not a reduction in what taxpayers pay bondholders. The accumulated deficit is used for the debt series because it is the government's own headline "federal debt" figure; interest-bearing debt ($1,869B in 2024-25) is larger because it includes pension liabilities and is offset by financial assets.