US Treasury 20-Year Auction Yield Rises to 5.469% as Bid Coverage Improves
Key Facts
The highest accepted yield at the US Treasury's 20-year bond auction rose to 5.469% on October 21, 2026, according to Treasury results, as bid coverage improved from September's auction. The offering totaled $13 billion in the latest auction of this maturity before the next quarterly refunding announcement. The highest accepted yield at the previous auction was 5.420%, according to the department's September results statement. The rise in yield was accompanied by an increase in bids, which exceeded the amount offered, and a higher bid-to-cover ratio. The results come as Citi forecasts address long-term bond issuance policy and the auction sizes the Treasury will announce in November.
Total bids submitted at the October auction reached $35,479,550,900, according to the official results statement, compared with $33,383,545,400 at September's auction. The ratio of bids to the amount offered, known as the bid-to-cover ratio, was 2.73 at the latest auction, up from 2.57 the previous month. In competitive allocations, indirect bidders received $7,502,510,000, the largest amount among the buyer categories listed in the results. Direct bidders received $4,075,000,000, while competitive allocations to primary dealers totaled $1,323,150,000. The indirect bidder category includes domestic and foreign buyers, as the Treasury's definition specifies that it includes investors regardless of domicile.
The latest auction was a reopening of bonds carrying an annual coupon of 5⅛%, according to the Treasury's statement on the additional offering. The statement sets the bonds' maturity date at August 15, 2046, with an original issue date of August 31, 2026. This maturity has a history of suspension and resumption within US debt issuance, according to the historical timeline published on the Treasury's website. The department discontinued regular quarterly issuance of 20-year bonds in 1986. It then resumed issuance of these bonds in May 2020, returning the instrument covered by the October auction to the Treasury's issuance program after its earlier suspension.
In its policy on outstanding long-term bonds, the Treasury announced an expansion of buybacks intended to support liquidity in these maturities. The announced maximum size per operation was $2 billion before the expansion, according to the department's statement on the program. The Treasury raised this limit to at least $4 billion per operation under the expanded program. The department said the move aimed to "provide greater liquidity support" in longer-term nominal bond sectors. This expansion concerns buyback operations, while the Treasury's auction-size guidance covered nominal securities and floating-rate notes.
The Treasury had said in its guidance that it expected to maintain auction sizes for nominal securities and floating-rate notes for at least the next several quarters. The department said in its statement that it expected to "maintain nominal securities and floating-rate note auction sizes for at least the next several quarters." Citi, meanwhile, included cuts to long-term bond auction sizes in its baseline forecast ahead of the November announcement, according to Bloomberg in a report carried by Moneycontrol. The scenario included reducing the size of each 20-year and 30-year bond auction by $3 billion. It proposed offsetting the resulting funding reduction by issuing additional Treasury bills, linking the bank's long-term bond forecast to increased bill issuance.
The additional offering sold at the auction will be issued on October 23, 2026, according to the date specified in the official results statement. The Treasury will then meet with dealers on October 29 and 30, 2026, in preparation for the quarterly refunding announcement. The agenda for these meetings asks dealers to assess structural changes in investor demand and their expected evolution over the medium term. The department is scheduled to announce its next quarterly refunding on November 4, 2026, the date addressed by Citi's auction-size forecasts. The preliminary official schedule includes another 20-year bond auction on November 18, 2026, according to the Treasury's upcoming auction schedule.