To calculate the M1 money supply, add three figures the Federal Reserve publishes each month: currency in circulation, demand deposits, and other liquid deposits. That’s the entire formula. As of January 2026, the seasonally adjusted M1 total came to roughly $19.2 trillion, with currency accounting for about $2.35 trillion and deposits making up the remaining $16.8 trillion or so.1Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Money Stock Measures – H.6
The Formula
M1 = Currency in Circulation + Demand Deposits + Other Liquid Deposits
No ratios, no weighting, no multipliers. You take the dollar value of each component at a specific point in time and add them together. The Fed reports each piece separately in billions of dollars, so you can either read the M1 total directly from the release or sum the three components yourself and verify it matches.
For January 2026, the seasonally adjusted total was $19,194.4 billion. The non-seasonally adjusted figure was $19,205.2 billion.1Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Money Stock Measures – H.6 Seasonal adjustment strips out recurring calendar patterns, like the December surge in cash demand around the holidays, so you can see whether M1 is genuinely expanding rather than just tracking the shopping season. Use adjusted figures for trend analysis; use unadjusted figures when you want the raw balance at a moment in time.
What Each Component Includes
Currency in Circulation
All physical Federal Reserve notes and coins held by the public. This figure excludes cash held inside the U.S. Treasury, in Federal Reserve Bank vaults, and in the vaults of depository institutions. If a bank has it in its vault, it doesn’t count; once it’s in a customer’s hands or register, it does.1Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Money Stock Measures – H.6
Demand Deposits
Funds in checking accounts at commercial banks that can be withdrawn or spent at any time without advance notice. The Fed’s figure excludes balances held by other depository institutions, the U.S. government, and foreign banks, since those aren’t part of the money the general public has ready to spend. Under Regulation D, demand deposits are classified as transaction accounts.2Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Regulation D Reserve Requirements of Depository Institutions
Other Liquid Deposits
This bucket combines two sub-items. The first is other checkable deposits, covering Negotiable Order of Withdrawal (NOW) accounts, automatic transfer service (ATS) accounts, and credit union share draft accounts. The second is savings deposits, which include money market deposit accounts. Before 2020, savings deposits sat outside M1 entirely, and their reclassification is the single most important thing to understand before comparing figures across time.3Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Money Stock Measures – H.6 Release
One small item to note: traveler’s checks from nonbank issuers used to appear in M1, but the Fed stopped publishing that data after December 2018 once the outstanding balance fell below $2 billion.4Federal Reserve Board. Money Stock Measures – H.6 Release – Technical QAs You don’t need to add them.
Where to Get the Numbers
The H.6 Statistical Release
The Federal Reserve’s primary publication for money supply data is the H.6 release, “Money Stock Measures.” It comes out on the fourth Tuesday of each month, generally at 1:00 p.m. Eastern, shifting to the next business day when that Tuesday is a federal holiday.5Federal Reserve Board. Money Stock Measures – H.6 Release Dates
Table 1 shows M1 and M2 totals as monthly averages for the most recent 17 months in both adjusted and unadjusted form. Table 2 breaks M1 into its individual components: currency, demand deposits, and other liquid deposits. All figures are reported in billions of dollars.1Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Money Stock Measures – H.6
The Fed revises previously published figures as new bank reporting data comes in. Revisions have historically ranged from $1 billion to as much as $20 billion for certain categories.4Federal Reserve Board. Money Stock Measures – H.6 Release – Technical QAs If you’re using a specific month’s number in research or a citation, check whether it has been revised since you first pulled it.
The FRED Database
For historical work, the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) database from the St. Louis Fed is the better tool. The seasonally adjusted monthly M1 series carries the identifier M1SL and runs back to January 1959.6ALFRED | St. Louis Fed. M1SL Series You can chart it, download it as a spreadsheet, and pull the component series separately if you want to run the addition yourself. An older weekly series simply called “M1” has been discontinued; FRED now redirects that link to M1SL.7Federal Reserve Economic Data. M1 (DISCONTINUED)
The May 2020 Series Break You Have to Know About
If you calculate M1 across a date range that spans May 2020, your numbers will look wrong, and they’ll actually be wrong for any comparison purpose. Here’s what happened.
In March 2020, the Fed cut reserve requirement ratios to zero percent for all depository institutions. That made the regulatory line between transaction accounts and savings deposits irrelevant. On April 24, 2020, the Fed also eliminated the six-per-month transfer limit on savings accounts under Regulation D. Savings deposits now had effectively the same liquidity as checking accounts.4Federal Reserve Board. Money Stock Measures – H.6 Release – Technical QAs
Starting with the May 2020 data point, the Fed folded savings deposits into M1. The reclassification added roughly $11.2 trillion to M1 in a single month.4Federal Reserve Board. Money Stock Measures – H.6 Release – Technical QAs No new money was printed. The same dollars that used to be counted only in M2 were now counted in M1 as well. M2 was unchanged, because M2 already included savings deposits.
Before May 2020, M1 hovered around $4 to $5 trillion. After the reclassification, it jumped above $16 trillion. The Fed itself calls this a “series break,” and any calculation that treats pre- and post-May 2020 M1 as the same series will produce meaningless growth rates.8Federal Reserve Economic Data. Savings Are Now More Liquid and Part of M1 Money If you need a consistent long series across that boundary, work with M2 instead, or restrict your M1 analysis to one side of the break.
What Not to Include: M1 Versus M2
Two categories of money belong to M2 but stay out of M1. Leave them out of your calculation:
- Small-denomination time deposits: CDs and similar instruments issued in amounts under $100,000, minus IRA and Keogh balances at depository institutions.1Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Money Stock Measures – H.6
- Retail money market fund shares: balances in money market mutual funds available to individual investors, again minus IRA and Keogh balances.9Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. What Is the Money Supply? Is It Important?
The dividing line is how quickly the money can actually be spent. A debit card linked to checking works in seconds. Cashing out a six-month CD early involves a penalty and at least a phone call. Retail money market funds usually require a redemption step before the cash reaches a spendable account. Those frictions keep them in M2 but out of M1.
Because M1 is now a subset of M2, the two aggregates move together, and any increase in M1 also increases M2 by the same amount. If your calculation puts M1 higher than M2, you’ve either added something you shouldn’t have or made an arithmetic error.