U.S. Household Debt Hit $19.1 Trillion as Late Payments Ticked Higher

U.S. household debt rose $334 billion in the third quarter to $19.105 trillion, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said Tuesday.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York released its Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit on Tuesday. The report covers borrowing through the end of September 2026.

The figures come from the New York Fed Consumer Credit Panel. It is a nationally representative sample drawn from anonymized Equifax credit report data.

Total balances rose across every major category in the quarter. Mortgages remained the largest share by far, at 70.0 percent of the total, a TickerGrove calculation.

Balances also stood $5 trillion higher than at the end of 2019. That was just before the pandemic recession, the report said.

Housing debt did most of the growing

Mortgage balances rose $257 billion to $13.374 trillion at the end of September. About half of that increase reflected balances being re-reported after a reporting gap in the previous quarter, the report said.

Home equity lines of credit (HELOCs), borrowing drawn against a home's value, rose $23 billion to $481 billion. It was the largest HELOC increase since 2005, and the 18th straight quarterly rise.

"Household debt levels rose moderately, led by increases in mortgage and home equity line of credit originations," said Donghoon Lee, Economic Research Advisor at the New York Fed.

New mortgage originations reached $595 billion in the quarter, notably higher than before. HELOC borrowing limits rose $31 billion, extending an expansion that began in 2022.

Mortgage originations count purchase and refinance loans appearing on credit reports. The credit quality of newly originated mortgage loans was slightly worse, the report said.

The 25th and 10th percentile credit scores of new mortgage borrowers fell. They declined by six and three points respectively, the report said.

Cards, autos and student loans added less

Credit card balances rose $22 billion to $1.285 trillion. Auto loan balances rose $21 billion to $1.734 trillion, and student loan balances edged up $5 billion to $1.656 trillion.

Non-housing balances grew $55 billion in all, or 1.1 percent, the report said. Other balances, which include retail cards and consumer finance loans, rose $7 billion to $575 billion.

New auto loans appearing on credit reports totaled $208 billion in the quarter. Aggregate credit card limits rose $115 billion, the report said.

More balances slipped into delinquency

Delinquency, debt with payments past due, worsened in aggregate. Some 5.0 percent of outstanding debt was in some stage of delinquency at the end of September, up from 4.7 percent.

Transitions into early delinquency, newly late payments, ticked up for mortgages and auto loans. They improved slightly for credit cards.

Transitions into serious delinquency, ninety days or more late, improved slightly for credit cards and student loans. They stayed flat for auto loans and HELOCs, while the mortgage rate worsened but stayed modest by historical standards.

The annualized flow of mortgage balances into serious delinquency was 1.60 percent in the third quarter. A year earlier it was 1.28 percent, the press release table showed.

The share of student loan balances ninety or more days past due rose to 10.9 percent. It was 10.6 percent in the second quarter.

Reuters reported the student-loan stress reflects borrowers grappling with the return of payments. Those payments had been paused during the pandemic.

"Although delinquency transition rates for housing debts have crept up, the overall credit quality of these loans remains strong," Lee said in the release.

Reuters framed the rise the same way. Troubled borrowing rose modestly and did not signal a notable deterioration in overall credit quality, Reuters reported, with trouble in line with pre-pandemic conditions and well below financial-crisis levels.

About 135,000 consumers had a bankruptcy notation added in the quarter, a slight decrease. About 62,000 individuals had new foreclosures, and the share of consumers with a collection account held steady at 4.9 percent.

In a separate Liberty Street Economics blog post, Lee wrote that card delinquency rose sharply from 2022 to 2024, hitting lower-income neighborhoods hardest. Pandemic-era cards went increasingly to lower-income, lower-score borrowers, and those accounts now show higher distress, he wrote.

What remains unknown

What remains unknown is whether the early-delinquency uptick for mortgages and autos becomes serious delinquency. The report does not say how the re-reported mortgage balances will affect next quarter's comparison.

How holiday borrowing lands on card balances is also unknown. So is whether student-loan delinquency keeps climbing now that payments have resumed in full.

The next report will test the trend

What to watch: whether the delinquency share rises again from 5.0 percent in the fourth-quarter report. Watch mortgage and auto early delinquency, and whether student-loan serious delinquency climbs past 10.9 percent.