Page 1 GAO-25-107421 U.S. Government’s 2024 and 2023 Consolidated Financial Statements
441 G St. N.W.
Washington, DC 20548
January 16, 2025
The President
The President of the Senate
The Speaker of the House of Representatives
Financial Audit: FY 2024 and FY 2023 Consolidated Financial Statements of the U.S.
Government
This report transmits the results of GAO’s audit of the U.S. government’s fiscal years 2024 and 2023
consolidated financial statements. GAO’s audit report is incorporated on page 208 in the enclosed
Fiscal Year 2024 Financial Report of the United States Government that the Secretary of the Treasury
prepared in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.
To operate as effectively and efficiently as possible, Congress, the administration, and federal
managers must have ready access to reliable and complete financial and performance information—
both for individual federal entities and for the federal government as a whole. Our report on the U.S.
government’s consolidated financial statements for fiscal years 2024 and 2023 discusses progress that
has been made, but also underscores that much work remains to improve federal financial
management and that the federal government continues to face an unsustainable long-term fiscal
path.
1
Our audit report on the U.S. government’s consolidated financial statements is enclosed. In summary,
we found the following:
• C
ertain material weaknesses
2
in internal control over financial reporting and other limitations
resulted in conditions that prevented us from expressing an opinion on the accrual-based
consolidated financial statements as of and for the fiscal years ended September 30, 2024, and
2023.
3
About 47 percent of the federal government’s reported total assets as of September 30,
2024, and approximately 21 percent of the federal government’s reported net cost for fiscal year
1
As discussed later in this report, an unsustainable long-term fiscal path is a situation where federal debt held by the public
grows faster than gross domestic product (GDP) over the long term.
2
A material weakness is a deficiency, or combination of deficiencies, in internal control over financial reporting, such that there
is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of the entity’s financial statements will not be prevented, or detected
and corrected, on a timely basis. A deficiency in internal control exists when the design or operation of a control does not allow
management or employees, in the normal course of performing their assigned functions, to prevent, or detect and correct,
misstatements on a timely basis.
3
The accrual-based consolidated financial statements comprise the (1) Statements of Net Cost, Statements of Operations and
Changes in Net Position, Reconciliations of Net Operating Cost and Budget Deficit, and Statements of Changes in Cash
Balance from Budget and Other Activities, for the fiscal years ended September 30, 2024, and 2023; (2) Balance Sheets as of
September 30, 2024, and 2023; and (3) related notes to these financial statements. Most revenues are recorded on a modified
cash basis.
