The U.S. Treasury’s Treasury International Capital (TIC) release for April 2026, published on June 18, gave bond-market bulls a small piece of good news in an otherwise crowded supply story. Foreign investors held $9.353 trillion in U.S. Treasury securities at the end of April — a fresh record, and a $4 billion uptick from the $9.349 trillion they held a month earlier. The release also showed foreigners bought a net $103 billion of long-term U.S. securities (Treasuries, agencies, corporates, equities) during the month, according to Reuters.
The composition of the demand is what matters. Japan and the United Kingdom — the two largest foreign holders — both added to their positions, more than offsetting another month of selling out of mainland China, whose Treasury holdings fell to the lowest level in roughly 18 years.
Who held what in April
| Holder | April 2026 | March 2026 | Monthly change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Japan | $1.210T | $1.191T | +$19B |
| United Kingdom | $937.5B | $926.9B | +$11B |
| China, mainland | $651.1B | $652.3B | -$1.2B |
| Total foreign holdings | $9.353T | $9.349T | +$4B |
China’s $651.1 billion print is the smallest reported holding for mainland China since the fall of 2008, when the country’s official position first crossed above $600 billion on its way up to a 2013 peak of roughly $1.32 trillion. The slow-bleed pattern — small monthly declines, occasional larger ones around U.S.-China flashpoints — has now been running for the better part of a decade.
The Japan and UK offset
What is keeping the aggregate at a record is the rest of the official sector. Japan added about $19 billion in April, a notable reversal after trimming roughly $47 billion in March amid yen volatility, per earlier TIC reporting. The UK — long the most important Treasury “transit hub” because of the City of London’s role for global asset managers — added another $11 billion. Together those two account for more than $30 billion of inflows, even as China shaved another $1 billion off its book.
That is the pattern Treasury officials privately point to when asked about de-dollarization: the headline number on China keeps falling, but the holders moving in the other direction are bigger and growing. Foreign demand for the dollar’s flagship safe asset is not collapsing; it is rotating.
Why it matters for U.S. yields and capital markets
The TIC release lands in a market that has been worried about supply, not demand. Treasury sold roughly $235 billion of marketable coupon and floating-rate notes in the week immediately after the June 17 FOMC, a calendar we wrote about here. The deficit trajectory under the new Warsh-led Federal Reserve has primary dealers asking how much new paper the back end of the curve can absorb without a re-pricing.
Foreign official demand is the single biggest swing factor in that question. As of the latest Federal Reserve H.15 release, the 10-year Treasury yield was 4.49% and the 30-year was 4.90% — near multi-year highs. Indirect-bidder ratios at recent coupon auctions have remained surprisingly firm, which the April TIC data now corroborates: the foreigners showed up.
Three things worth watching from here
- The May TIC release in mid-July. The April data covers the month immediately before Chair Warsh’s first FOMC. May will tell us whether foreign accounts kept buying after Treasury yields broke above the 4.4% level on the 10-year. A second consecutive month of Japan/UK inflows would significantly de-risk the supply outlook into Q3.
- The yen and the sterling. Japan’s Treasury position is partly a function of the Ministry of Finance’s intervention reserves and partly a function of private Japanese life insurers reaching for yield. Both are sensitive to USD/JPY and to the BoJ’s pace of normalization. A renewed weak-yen impulse historically forces MoF to draw down — which means selling Treasuries.
- The China runoff. The People’s Bank of China has been a steady gold buyer for 19 consecutive months as of the May 2026 release, per the World Gold Council’s central-bank tracker. The PBOC has not been a forced seller of Treasuries, but reinvestment behavior on maturing CUSIPs is what is driving the runoff. Until that flips, expect the headline number on China to keep slipping a few billion at a time.
For now, the April release is a quiet reassurance. The U.S. is asking the world to absorb roughly $2 trillion of net new Treasury issuance per year, and the world — minus China — is showing up at the auction window. Whether that holds when the supply meets a more hawkish Fed in the second half of 2026 is the question that matters most to anyone pricing duration today.
Sources
- U.S. Treasury — TIC, Major Foreign Holders of Treasury Securities
- Reuters — Foreign holdings of US Treasuries rise in April, led by Japan, UK (Jun 18, 2026)
- The Star (Reuters wire) — China trims US Treasury holdings to 18-year low (Jun 21, 2026)
- Federal Reserve — H.15 Selected Interest Rates
- World Gold Council — Monthly Central Bank Statistics
- ECMSource — Treasury’s Coupon Storm Hits Right After Warsh’s First FOMC
Disclosure: This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed before publication. It is for informational purposes only and is not investment advice.