Hambrox Ltd
23 Feb 2026
The UK, Belgium, and Japan were the three largest buyers of U.S. debt from November 2024 to November 2025, each increasing holdings by more than $115 billion. China reduced its U.S. debt holdings by $86 billion over the same period, leading all countries in net selling.
Each year, the U.S. relies on domestic and foreign investors to finance its growing debt by issuing Treasuries. Private investors mainly purchase those Treasuries based on their yields (ROI) while governments in the main do so to manage their foreign exchange reserves.
From November 2024 to November 2025 the UK, Belgium and Japan increased their holdings by more than $100 billion each while Canada’s increase was just under that amount at $99.8 billion.
Belgium added $119.7 billion to its holdings representing an increase of 33%. Belgium’s overall US debt balance of $481 billion is disproportionately high for a population of just under 12 million people because of Euroclear which is based in Brussels. Euroclear is a major clearinghouse and custody hub that holds bonds on behalf of investors across Europe. Hence, the figures may indicate the custodial holdings of US debt rather than ownership. The same principle applies to other major international financial centres such as the UK.
It is worth noting that as of late 2025, approximately $210–$247 billion of Russian central bank assets frozen by the EU were held in Euroclear. This amount represents the vast majority of the total $339.3 billion in Russian assets frozen globally.
Japan in turn has consistently been one of the largest foreign holders of US debt for several decades in large part because of the very low domestic interest rate. In June 2019 Japan overtook China as the largest foreign holder of US Treasuries and since then has gradually increased its reserves Y-o-Y culminating in $1.2 trillion in November 2025.
China disposed of $86 billion in Treasuries representing a further 11% annual decline. Since August 2017 China has consistenty reduced its US debt holdings and nearly halving it from a high of $1.2 trillion to $683.9 billion in November 2025. China has been diversifying its reserves into gold and other assets to reduce its exposure to US dollars.
Incidentally, the next two countries after China that had major reductions in their US debt holdings were fellow BRICS members Brazil and India who cut their holdings by a combined $108 billion. While those countries might have drawn on their dollar reserves to support their respective domestic currencies, it may also be an affirmation of the continuous trend of de-dollarisation.
