diff --git a/base/timing.jl b/base/timing.jl
index 80ebb74abee26..6d97d70d2f04c 100644
--- a/base/timing.jl
+++ b/base/timing.jl
@@ -104,6 +104,33 @@ function gc_page_utilization_data()
     return Base.unsafe_wrap(Array, page_utilization_raw, JL_GC_N_MAX_POOLS, own=false)
 end
 
+# must be kept in sync with `src/gc-stock.h``
+const FULL_SWEEP_REASONS = [:FULL_SWEEP_REASON_SWEEP_ALWAYS_FULL, :FULL_SWEEP_REASON_FORCED_FULL_SWEEP,
+                            :FULL_SWEEP_REASON_USER_MAX_EXCEEDED, :FULL_SWEEP_REASON_LARGE_PROMOTION_RATE]
+
+"""
+    Base.full_sweep_reasons()
+
+Return a dictionary of the number of times each full sweep reason has occurred.
+
+The reasons are:
+- `:FULL_SWEEP_REASON_SWEEP_ALWAYS_FULL`: Full sweep was caused due to `always_full` being set in the GC debug environment
+- `:FULL_SWEEP_REASON_FORCED_FULL_SWEEP`: Full sweep was forced by `GC.gc(true)`
+- `:FULL_SWEEP_REASON_USER_MAX_EXCEEDED`: Full sweep was forced due to the system reaching the heap soft size limit
+- `:FULL_SWEEP_REASON_LARGE_PROMOTION_RATE`: Full sweep was forced by a large promotion rate across GC generations
+
+Note that the set of reasons is not guaranteed to be stable across minor versions of Julia.
+"""
+function full_sweep_reasons()
+    reason = cglobal(:jl_full_sweep_reasons, UInt64)
+    reasons_as_array = Base.unsafe_wrap(Vector{UInt64}, reason, length(FULL_SWEEP_REASONS), own=false)
+    d = Dict{Symbol, Int64}()
+    for (i, r) in enumerate(FULL_SWEEP_REASONS)
+        d[r] = reasons_as_array[i]
+    end
+    return d
+end
+
 """
     Base.jit_total_bytes()
 
diff --git a/src/gc-stock.c b/src/gc-stock.c
index d25f8917f302d..6b97881909bbd 100644
--- a/src/gc-stock.c
+++ b/src/gc-stock.c
@@ -40,6 +40,8 @@ uv_sem_t gc_sweep_assists_needed;
 uv_mutex_t gc_queue_observer_lock;
 // Tag for sentinel nodes in bigval list
 uintptr_t gc_bigval_sentinel_tag;
+// Table recording number of full GCs due to each reason
+JL_DLLEXPORT uint64_t jl_full_sweep_reasons[FULL_SWEEP_NUM_REASONS];
 
 // Flag that tells us whether we need to support conservative marking
 // of objects.
@@ -3043,10 +3045,12 @@ static int _jl_gc_collect(jl_ptls_t ptls, jl_gc_collection_t collection)
     // we either free some space or get an OOM error.
     if (gc_sweep_always_full) {
         sweep_full = 1;
+        gc_count_full_sweep_reason(FULL_SWEEP_REASON_SWEEP_ALWAYS_FULL);
     }
     if (collection == JL_GC_FULL && !prev_sweep_full) {
         sweep_full = 1;
         recollect = 1;
+        gc_count_full_sweep_reason(FULL_SWEEP_REASON_FORCED_FULL_SWEEP);
     }
     if (sweep_full) {
         // these are the difference between the number of gc-perm bytes scanned
@@ -3182,10 +3186,17 @@ static int _jl_gc_collect(jl_ptls_t ptls, jl_gc_collection_t collection)
     }
 
     double old_ratio = (double)promoted_bytes/(double)heap_size;
-    if (heap_size > user_max || old_ratio > 0.15)
+    if (heap_size > user_max) {
         next_sweep_full = 1;
-    else
+        gc_count_full_sweep_reason(FULL_SWEEP_REASON_USER_MAX_EXCEEDED);
+    }
+    else if (old_ratio > 0.15) {
+        next_sweep_full = 1;
+        gc_count_full_sweep_reason(FULL_SWEEP_REASON_LARGE_PROMOTION_RATE);
+    }
+    else {
         next_sweep_full = 0;
+    }
     if (heap_size > user_max || thrashing)
         under_pressure = 1;
     // sweeping is over
diff --git a/src/gc-stock.h b/src/gc-stock.h
index 45c93bf4289ae..46f7d3e11e105 100644
--- a/src/gc-stock.h
+++ b/src/gc-stock.h
@@ -505,6 +505,20 @@ FORCE_INLINE void gc_big_object_link(bigval_t *sentinel_node, bigval_t *node) JL
     sentinel_node->next = node;
 }
 
+// Must be kept in sync with `base/timing.jl`
+#define FULL_SWEEP_REASON_SWEEP_ALWAYS_FULL (0)
+#define FULL_SWEEP_REASON_FORCED_FULL_SWEEP (1)
+#define FULL_SWEEP_REASON_USER_MAX_EXCEEDED (2)
+#define FULL_SWEEP_REASON_LARGE_PROMOTION_RATE (3)
+#define FULL_SWEEP_NUM_REASONS (4)
+
+extern JL_DLLEXPORT uint64_t jl_full_sweep_reasons[FULL_SWEEP_NUM_REASONS];
+STATIC_INLINE void gc_count_full_sweep_reason(int reason) JL_NOTSAFEPOINT
+{
+    assert(reason >= 0 && reason < FULL_SWEEP_NUM_REASONS);
+    jl_full_sweep_reasons[reason]++;
+}
+
 extern uv_mutex_t gc_perm_lock;
 extern uv_mutex_t gc_threads_lock;
 extern uv_cond_t gc_threads_cond;
diff --git a/test/gc.jl b/test/gc.jl
index e46ff0ed73fd9..c532f17f04eb5 100644
--- a/test/gc.jl
+++ b/test/gc.jl
@@ -49,6 +49,13 @@ function issue_54275_test()
     @test !live_bytes_has_grown_too_much
 end
 
+function full_sweep_reasons_test()
+    GC.gc()
+    reasons = Base.full_sweep_reasons()
+    @test reasons[:FULL_SWEEP_REASON_FORCED_FULL_SWEEP] >= 1
+    @test keys(reasons) == Set(Base.FULL_SWEEP_REASONS)
+end
+
 # !!! note:
 #     Since we run our tests on 32bit OS as well we confine ourselves
 #     to parameters that allocate about 512MB of objects. Max RSS is lower
@@ -73,6 +80,10 @@ end
     @test isempty(Docs.undocumented_names(GC))
 end
 
+@testset "Full GC reasons" begin
+    full_sweep_reasons_test()
+end
+
 #testset doesn't work here because this needs to run in top level
 #Check that we ensure objects in toplevel exprs are rooted
 global dims54422 = [] # allocate the Binding