City spending

General Debt Services

The city's published checkbook records $3,677,662,780 paid out under this department across 1,800 payment lines and 53 named vendors, FY2018–FY2026.

Department name as the city's finance system records it. The city's budget year runs July 1 to June 30, so FY2026 means July 2025 through June 2026.

By fiscal year

FY2018$367,106,952

FY2019$393,753,609

FY2020$396,146,531

FY2021$366,863,293

FY2022$411,669,108

FY2023$412,679,071

FY2024$370,428,435

FY2025$476,264,744

FY2026$482,751,037

The city publishes this a few times a year, so it runs behind — the newest payments can take a few months to appear, and a fiscal year that has just ended usually isn't published at all yet. Treat the most recent year as incomplete.

Largest vendors (25 of 53)

THE BANK OF NEW YORK$3,303,701,986

UMB BANK N.A.$223,206,801

US BANK NATIONAL ASSOCITATION$101,566,503

WELLS FARGO BANK$20,098,097

State Street Bank and Trust$6,298,037

BARCLAYS CAPITAL INC$4,570,173

BRACEWELL LLP$3,206,543

THE TORONTO DOMINION BANK$2,959,571

CITIGROUP GLOBAL MARKETS INC.$1,619,461

TEXAS WATER DEVELOPMENT BOARD$1,167,485

MOODYS INVESTORS SERVICE$1,057,300

NORTON ROSE FULBRIGHT US LLP$1,015,100

TEXAS COMPTROLLER OF PUBLIC$664,173

STANDARD POORS FINANCIAL SERVICES$598,575

FBT GIBBONS LLP$521,644

SUMITOMO MITSUI BANKING CORPORATIO$451,218

MIZUHO BANK LTD$450,114

LOOP CAPITAL MARKETS LLC$406,899

COCHRAN BAKER WILLIAMS MATTHIESEN$371,707

FITCH INC.$352,000

CHAPMAN AND CUTLER LLP$350,000

ORRICK HERRINGTON SUTCLIFFE LLP$315,087

EDGARDO E COLON PC$252,635

HAYNES AND BOONE LLP$227,988

GREENBERG TRAURIG LLP$202,400

What this does and doesn't show

These are payments, not a budget. The same ledger carries debt payments, bank and pension transfers and accounting reversals alongside what the city bought, so adding it all up doesn't describe city spending — which is why you won't find a citywide total here. What a named vendor or department was paid is solid.
Some payments name no company: the city files them under "GENERAL ONE-TIME VENDOR" or a bare asterisk — $617,266,200 across FY2018–FY2026, about 1.2% of all payments. Much of that is properly private, like legal settlements and housing assistance paid to individuals. Those payments aren't listed as vendors here because there's no vendor to list.
A department total here is what moved through that department's books, not its budget. Funds it administers on someone else's behalf are included.

From the City of Houston's published checkbook ↗.