Foreign Flows in U.S. Fixed Income: Demand for U.S. bonds surges in April

Research evidence excerpt

Foreign Flows in U.S. Fixed Income: Demand for U.S. bonds surges in April

Foreign Flows in U.S. Fixed Income

24 June 2026 Citi Research

Starting in 2023, the US Treasury Department began reporting its own estimate of

net purchases and sales derived from valuation adjustments provided in forms

submitted to the government by asset owners. For April, this Treasury-reported

figure shows foreigners posted net inflows of $16.1bn. These values have at times

diverged substantially from our estimates, and we provide them here for reference.

Figure 7. Deriving adjusted net foreign purchases of U.S. bonds from headline Treasury figures and market value

adjustments (Last Twelve Months)

© 2026 Citigroup Inc. No redistribution without Citigroup’s written permission.

Source: Citi Research, US Treasury, Bloomberg, Haver Analytics, LSEG Yieldbook

Figure 8. Deriving adjusted net foreign purchases of U.S. bonds from headline Treasury figures and market value

adjustments (2015 – 2026)

USTs: Extending Duration?

Raghav Datla Data on foreign holdings of USTs (TIC) showed that demand for long-term USTs

raghavendra.varma.datla@citi.com stayed elevated in April after picking up in March. Overall, foreign holdings of long-

term USTs increased by $42.7bn on a value-adjusted basis (Figure 9). The increase

Jason Williams was mainly driven by foreign private investors, whose long-term UST holdings

jason1.williams@citi.com increased by about $44.6bn (z-score of 0.44). This is the fourth straight month of

net UST purchases by foreign private investors and brings their YTD UST purchases

to about $143bn. That is higher than the $115bn foreign private purchases in the

first four months of last year. On the other hand, foreign official long-term UST

holdings decreased by about $2bn (z-score of -0.16).