United States - Treasury Bills: 26-week - High rate

United States: Treasury Bills: 26-week - High rate

Mnemonic	IRATB6MM.IUSA
Unit	%, NSA
Adjustments	Not Seasonally Adjusted
	Monthly	0.56 %
Data	May 2026	3.62
	Apr 2026	3.6

Series Information

Source	U.S. Bureau of Public Debt
Release	Treasury auctions - 13- and 26-week (91- and 182-day) T-Bills
Frequency	Business Daily
Start Date	1/31/1960
End Date	5/31/2026

United States: Business

	Reference	Last	Previous	Units	Frequency
Purchasing Managers index	May 2026	54	52.7	Diffusion index, SA	Monthly
Business Confidence	Apr 2026	99.97	99.91	Index long term avg=100, SA	Monthly
Capacity Utilization	Apr 2026	76.12	75.67	%, SA	Monthly
Industrial Production	Apr 2026	102.5	101.81	Index 2017=100, SA	Monthly
Change in Inventories	2026 Q1	-40,234	-46,150	Mil. USD, SAAR	Quarterly
Real Change in Inventories	2026 Q1	-25,660	-15,636	Mil. Ch. 2017 USD, SAAR	Quarterly

Release Information

Description

For the U.S., detailed results of competitive bidding for federal government securities (types: T-bill, T-note, T-bond, TIPS, FRN, CMB). Shorter maturities are regularly auctioned weekly, whereas longer maturities are less frequent or irregular. The results show the amount of interest from buyers, whether the entire issue was sold, and at what yield.

Properties

Measurements:
- U.S. dollars (USD)
- Thousands of U.S. dollars (Ths. USD)
- Percent per annum (% p.a.)
- Percent share (%)
- Ratio
Adjustment: Not seasonally adjusted (NSA)
Native frequency: Daily
Start date: As early as 1931

Methodology

The U.S. Bureau of Public Debt offers Treasury Direct, a method to buy U.S. debt obligations without a broker or dealer intermediary. Auctions of securities are conducted with a competitive phase (i.e., a Dutch auction), in which bidders state interest rates they're willing to acceptand the Treasury awards blocks to the highest bids, followed by a non-competitive phase in which the remaining balance is offered at the average price set during the auction.

Competitive and noncompetitive components of the issue

Total
- Competitive
  - Primary dealer
  - Direct bidder
  - Indirect bidder
- Noncompetitive
- FIMA (noncompetitive)
- SOMA

Types of security

Cash management bill (CMB): A short-term security with a maturity from a few days to a full year. Issued when needed by the Treasury to meet short-term financing needs. Tend to carry a higher interest rate but because their periods are short, they lead to less overall interest expense.
Treasury bill (T-bill): A short-term debt obligation issued by the U.S. government with a maturity up to one year, commonly as one month, three months or six months (labeled as four, 13, or 26 weeks). Sold in increments of $1,000 up to $5 million. Do not make interest payments; instead, soldby at a discount from par, and the appreciation is redeemed upon maturity.
Treasury note (T-note): A marketable, fixed-interest medium-term U.S. debt obligation, with a maturity of one to 10 years, making semi-annual interest payments. Sold at auction.
Treasury bond (T-bond): A marketable, fixed-interest long-term U.S. debt obligation; marketable, fixed-interest; maturity greater than 10 years, making semi-annual interest payments. Sold at auction: a single non-competitive bidder can buy $1,000 to $5 million, and a competitive bidder can buy up to 35% of the offering.
Treasury Inflation Protected Security (TIPS): As with T-notes and T-bonds, pays semi-annual interest and is redeemed for principal upon maturity, but the coupon payments and underlying principal are adjusted to compensate for inflation as measured by the CPI. Therefore, the real rate of return is guaranteed, but at the cost of a low return. A.k.a. Treasury inflation-indexed securities.

Terms and cadences

Cash management bill - As-needed terms of 1-339 days; auctioned as-needed, occasionally with two distinct issues on one day; Data Buffet time series use a daily frequency.
4-week (1-month) T-bill - Term of 27-29 days; auctioned weekly on Tuesday at 11:30 a.m. ET.
6-week T-bill - Term of 42 days; auctioned weekly on Tuesday; inaugurated February 2025.
8-week (2-month) T-bill - Term of 54 days; inaugurated October 2018.
13-week (3-month) T-bill - Term of 91-92 days; auctioned weekly on Monday at 11:30.
17-week (4-month) T-bill - Auctioned weekly on Wednesday. First issued in October 2022.
26-week (6-month) T-bill - Term of 181-182 days; auctioned weekly on Monday at 11:30.
52-week (1-year) T-bill - Term of 365 days; auctioned monthly on a Tuesday at 1:00 p.m. ET.
2-year T-note - Monthly, usually on a Tuesday, at 1:00.
2-year FRN - Monthly, usually on a Tuesday or Wednesday.
3-year T-note - Quarterly until 2007, five times in 2008, monthly from 2009; Tuesday at 1:00.
5-year T-note - Monthly, usually on a Wednesday, at 1:00.
5-year TIPS - Twice a year, in April and October.
7-year T-note - Two to five times a year until 1993, not used 1994-2008, monthly since 2009; usually on a Thursday, at 1:00.
10-year T-note - Monthly, on a Wednesday, at 1:00.
10-year TIPS - Four to five times a year.
20-year TIPS - Twice a year, in January and July.
20-year T-bond - Monthly (four original issues and eight reopenings), on a Wednesday.
30-year T-bond - One to four times a year until 2008, ten times in 2009, monthly since 2010 (four original issues and eight reopenings); on a Thursday, at 1:00.
30-year TIPS - As needed.

CUSIP prefixes

CMB: 912797-
4-, 6-, 8-, 13-, 17-, 26-week: 912795-, 912797-
30-year T-bond: 912810-
Others: 912828-, 91282C-

Types of buyer

Primary dealer: Primary dealers as submitters bidding for their own house accounts.
Direct bidder: Non-primary dealer submitters bidding for their own house accounts.
Indirect bidder: Customers placing competitive bids through a direct submitter, including foreign and international monetary authorities placing bids through the New York Federal Reserve Bank.

Auction results

Tendered (Ths. USD): The dollar volume of bids submitted by a class of buyer.
Accepted (Ths. USD): The dollar volume of bids by a class of buyer accepted by Treasury.
High rate (%): All tenders at lower rates were accepted in full.
Median rate (%): 50% of the amount of accepted competitive tenders was tendered at or below this rate.
Low rate (%): 5% of the amount of accepted competitive tenders was tendered at or below this rate.
Investment rate (%): Equivalent coupon-issue yield.
Allotted at high (%): The fraction of the issue won by bidders paying the high rate.
Price ($): Price per $100 of Treasury securities. Usually less than $100.
Bid-to-cover ratio: The ratio of tendered-to-accepted bids for the sum of competitive, noncompetitive, and FIMA; but not SOMA.

Timeliness

Auctions may be displaced to avoid holidays. The tentative advance release calendar (ARC_ is not retroactively modified, but the actual dates and explanatory press releases are tabulated on the "announcement and results" page.

A given issue may undergo an "original" auction and then several "reopening" auctions. Both are listed on the tentative ARC PDF, but are not differentiated.

A single issue is identified by a CUSIP (visible in the summary tables) and by "series" (in the press releases). For example, the 2-year FRN auctioned on 23 October 2013 is CUSIP 912828YN4 and series BJ-2021. In the "announcement and results" table, original and reopening auctions can be identified because they share a CUSIP.

On rare occasions, Treasury will conduct a "live small-value contingency auction" as a test.

Revisions

No. The auction results are not subject to revision.

Notes

Cash management bills (CMBs) are issued as-needed.

In Data Buffet, if two auctions of the same type occur on the same day, we will displace one to an otherwise-empty adjacent day. For example, auctions of 42- and 119-day CMBs were held on 12 May 2020, so we displaced results for the 42-day security to 11 May.

Some news providers, including the Wall Street Journal, refer to U.S. Treasury securities as "Treasurys." Moody's Analytics style is "Treasuries" or "Treasury securities" because "-ys" doesn't read as a proper plural.