What was California's share of US GDP in 2024 and 2025?
Executive summary
California accounted for roughly 13.9–14.1 percent of U.S. nominal GDP in 2024, depending on which state and national series one uses; precise share varies because different data releases list California’s 2024 nominal GDP between about $4.048 trillion and $4.103 trillion while the BEA’s published U.S. total for 2024 is $29.184 trillion [1] [2]. The reporting available in the provided sources does not contain a verified, single-line official 2025 U.S. GDP total that would allow calculation of California’s exact share for 2025, so any 2025 share is an estimate or requires additional BEA releases not included here [3].
1. California’s 2024 nominal GDP — which number to use and why it matters
The most directly cited state-level figure in official statistical series shown in the sources is $4.048 trillion for California’s 2024 nominal GSP as reported in FRED’s state GDP series and echoed on summary pages such as Wikipedia, which lists California’s gross state product as $4.048 trillion for 2024 [1] [4]; other compilations and media reports round that to $4.10 trillion based on BEA tabulations and IMF comparisons [5] [6]. That $4.048–$4.10 trillion range matters because a $50–$60 billion swing in the numerator changes California’s share of the national total by a few tenths of a percentage point, which is why careful reporting cites the exact series and revision date [1] [2].
2. The national denominator used to compute “share”
The commonly cited U.S. nominal GDP total for calendar year 2024 in the assembled sources is $29.184 trillion, a BEA-derived aggregate used in state-by-state comparisons and reproduced in the list of states by GDP [2]. Using that national total as the denominator is the standard approach when stating a state’s percent-of-U.S. GDP for a calendar year; differences arise only if one uses chained (real) versus current-dollar (nominal) series or different revision vintages of BEA data [3] [7].
3. Calculating the 2024 share and the range readers should expect
Dividing the FRED/Wikipedia 2024 California nominal figure ($4.048 trillion) by the U.S. total ($29.184 trillion) yields about 13.9 percent for 2024, while using the slightly higher $4.10 trillion headline reported in some outlets produces about 14.1 percent — that is, California’s share of U.S. nominal GDP in 2024 lies in roughly a 13.9–14.1% band depending on the chosen source and rounding conventions [1] [2] [4]. Both percentages are consistent with the framing used in state and national reporting that California contributed materially more to U.S. output than any other state in 2024 [2].
4. Why the 2025 figure is not a settled number in the provided reporting
The provided sources include strong coverage and multiple compilations for 2024—BEA-derived state totals and widely cited media summaries—but they do not provide a definitive 2025 U.S. nominal GDP total required to compute California’s 2025 percentage share; the FRED time series for California extends into 2025 reports for some series but the national denominator for 2025 is not supplied in the excerpted material, so an authoritative 2025 share cannot be computed from these sources alone [7] [8] [3]. Because shares are sensitive to both numerator and denominator revisions, citing a 2025 share without the BEA national release would be speculative relative to the evidence provided [3].
5. Bottom line and how to get a single authoritative number
The evidence in the supplied reporting supports stating that California’s share of U.S. nominal GDP in 2024 was about 13.9–14.1% depending on data vintage and rounding [1] [2] [4]; a precise 2025 percentage requires the BEA’s finalized 2025 national GDP total and the corresponding state-level 2025 GSP release, neither of which are contained in the provided sources, so obtaining BEA releases or the updated FRED series for both California and the U.S. is the next step for an exact 2025 share [3] [7].