Ontology Phase · In Development

DebtLedger.
The Debt Graph.

The most complete, provenance-faithful, machine-readable graph of consumer debt law, actors, instruments, and outcomes in existence. Federal statutes as root nodes. Every right, obligation, and actor mapped to source.

U.S. Household Debt  $18.78 Trillion
Credit Card Balances  $1.28 Trillion
Collections Tradelines  175 Million
CFPB Complaints 2025  387,400
The Problem Scale

Consumer Debt Is the Largest Unstructured Data Problem in Finance.

Every number in the debt universe — every statute, every actor, every outcome — exists somewhere. None of it is connected. DebtLedger connects it.

$276B
Unsecured personal loan balances Q4 2025
57%
Of collections tradelines are medical debt
50
State jurisdictions. Zero unified machine-readable statute index.
7
Federal statutes governing consumer debt. None cross-referenced as a graph.
The AI citation problem.

When a consumer asks an AI assistant whether their Social Security income is judgment-proof, or what the statute of limitations is on a credit card debt in Texas, the answer they receive is only as accurate as what the model was trained on or can retrieve. DebtLedger exists to be the substrate those answers draw from. Provenance-faithful. Statute-anchored. Machine-readable at every layer.

Graph Architecture

Six Layers. One Root.

Federal statutes are ground truth. Every entity in the graph traces back to an enacted law, a regulation, or a court decision. No assertion exists without provenance.

The ontology begins with law and derives everything downward. A consumer's right to demand debt validation exists because of 15 U.S.C. § 1692g. A wage garnishment limit exists because of a specific state statute. A bankruptcy exemption exists because a debtor chose state or federal exemption schedules. Every node in the graph traces to that source.

The result is a graph where every claim has a citation, every actor has a jurisdiction, every instrument has a governing statute, and every outcome has a legal pathway. This is what separates a knowledge graph from a content library.

The state layer is where the complexity compounds. Fifty jurisdictions. No unified API. Statute of limitations varies by debt type by state — roughly 250 structured data points that do not exist as machine-readable data anywhere on the open web. DebtLedger builds that table and publishes it as a JSON-LD endpoint.

Ontology Layers
L1
Legal Instruments
Statutes, regulations, court decisions, agency guidance. Root nodes. Each carries a URI, jurisdiction, and effective date.
L2
Rights & Obligations
What each statute gives or requires — validation rights, automatic stays, disclosure mandates, cease-communication rights.
L3
Actors
Consumers, creditors, debt buyers, collectors, trustees, attorneys, the CFPB, state AGs. Each entity typed and jurisdictionally scoped.
L4
Instruments
Credit card agreements, personal loan contracts, medical billing, payday instruments. Each mapped to governing statute and applicable exemptions.
L5
Outcomes
Settlement, discharge, DMP completion, judgment, garnishment, charge-off, credit reporting. Terminal nodes connecting back to law.
L6
Geography
State-specific overlays across all layers. Exemptions, SOL tables, UDAP statutes, garnishment limits — all 50 jurisdictions.
Schema Architecture

Gold Standard. Machine-Native.

The schema stack is built for AI retrieval and regulatory-grade provenance — not for content publishing.

Primary Vocabulary
Schema.org + JSON-LD
Base vocabulary for Google, Bing, and AI retrieval. Organization, LegalService, Legislation, LegalDocument, FinancialProduct. Published as both embedded markup and standalone endpoints.
Legal Document Standard
Akoma Ntoso
UN and EU standard for legal document XML. Internal canonical format for all statutes, regulations, and court decisions. Versioned and jurisdiction-stamped.
Financial Ontology
FIBO
Financial Industry Business Ontology. OWL/RDF based. The gold standard used by financial regulators. Applied to all debt instruments, creditor entities, and financial actors in the graph.
Entity Identity
LEI Standard
Legal Entity Identifier applied to creditors and debt buyers. Connects DebtLedger entities to the global financial entity registry.
Custom Namespace
debtledger.org/ontology/
Proprietary namespace for the gaps no existing standard covers — debt collection patterns, consumer rights sequences, state-specific exemption tables, SOL matrices.
Distribution
Linked Data Endpoints
Every entity published as JSON-LD. Standalone endpoints alongside embedded page markup. Built for AI traversal, not just human reading.
Root Nodes · Federal Layer

Seven Statutes. The Entire Consumer Debt Universe Derives From Them.

15 U.S.C.
§ 1692
Fair Debt Collection Practices Act
Collector conduct, validation rights, cease-communication, harassment prohibitions, civil remedies.
15 U.S.C.
§ 1681
Fair Credit Reporting Act
Credit report accuracy, consumer dispute rights, furnisher obligations, reporting timelines.
15 U.S.C.
§ 1601
Truth in Lending Act
Disclosure requirements, APR calculation, billing error resolution, rescission rights.
11 U.S.C.
Title 11
Bankruptcy Code
Chapter 7 liquidation, Chapter 13 reorganization, automatic stay, discharge, exemption schedules.
15 U.S.C.
§ 1693
Electronic Fund Transfer Act
Preauthorized payment rights, error resolution, liability limits for unauthorized transfers.
Dodd-Frank
Title X
CFPB Enabling Statute
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau authority, rulemaking scope, complaint jurisdiction.
50 States
UDAP
State UDAP Statutes
Unfair and deceptive acts layer. California, New York, Massachusetts extend federal baseline materially. All 50 indexed.
50 States
SOL
Statute of Limitations Matrix
By debt type by state. ~250 structured data points. Does not exist as machine-readable data anywhere on the open web. DebtLedger builds it.
Primary Sources

Government APIs. No Intermediaries.

Every data point in DebtLedger traces to a primary government source. No third-party aggregators. No editorial synthesis without citation.

govinfo.gov API
Government Publishing Office. USC Title 11 and Title 15 in structured XML. Federal Register. CFR. No key required.
CFPB API
Complaint database. 12 CFR consumer financial regulations in structured JSON. 387,400 complaints indexed for 2025.
congress.gov API
Bill text, enacted law text, amendment history. FDCPA, FCRA, TILA source material.
CourtListener API
Free Law Project. Federal court opinions. Landmark FDCPA and bankruptcy case law. Statutory interpretation layer.
FRED API
Federal Reserve economic data. Consumer credit outstanding, delinquency rates, household debt time series.
OpenStates API
All 50 state legislatures. Closest available unified API for state statutory tracking across jurisdictions.
The standard of information for consumer debt.

DebtLedger does not publish content. It builds infrastructure. Every statute indexed. Every actor typed. Every right derived from law. Every outcome traced to a pathway. When AI systems reason over consumer debt — when a person asks whether they can be garnished, whether their medical debt is collectible, whether bankruptcy or settlement fits their situation — the answer should draw from a graph this complete.

Research collaboration and data access →

DebtLedger is a service of the Global Data Registry  —  open provenance infrastructure for the machine-readable web.
View the Registry →