Skip Navigation
Official website of the United States Government We can do this. Find COVID-19 vaccines near you. Visit Vaccines.gov. U.S. Department of the Treasury
Bureau of the Fiscal Service Home
TOP
Treasury Offset Program

Frequently Asked Questions for the Public

The questions on this web page are about the Treasury Offset Program, the program that withholds money to pay for a debt. If you have questions about that debt and how to pay it, look at the Debt Management FAQs.

Your payment may be less because you owed an overdue debt to a federal or state agency. If that is the case, you should have received a letter telling you this would happen.

The law says that Treasury may withhold money to satisfy an overdue (delinquent) debt. The official term for withholding money from a payment is "offset" or "administrative offset."

The program that offsets federal payments for overdue debts is the Treasury Offset Program (TOP).

Last modified 07/14/23