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National Debt Paid Off
- When
- January 1835
- Where
- United States
In January 1835, President Andrew Jackson paid off the national debt, the only time in U.S. history that the public debt contracted to zero.
The United States federal government has continuously had a fluctuating public debt since its formation in 1789, except for about a year during 1835–1836. During this period, the nation completely paid the national debt. Jackson became the only U.S. president to pay off the national debt, an accomplishment that occurred in January 1835.
Sources
- National debt of the United States Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-18
- Andrew Jackson Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-30
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.