How did 2024 tax revenue from undocumented immigrants compare to 2020–2023 trends?
Executive summary
Estimates published in 2024 put undocumented immigrants’ total tax contributions in prior years near $90–$100 billion annually, with authoritative studies using different scopes and methods: ITEP estimated $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes for 2022 [1], while The Budget Lab put 2023 federal tax payments at about $66 billion and the American Immigration Council reported roughly $89.8 billion in total taxes for 2023 households led by undocumented immigrants [2] [3]. There is no single, directly reported “2024 tax revenue” figure in the sources provided, so comparisons rely on these most recent published estimates and on the methodological caveats those groups disclose [4] [2].
1. What the 2024 reporting actually measures: backward-looking estimates, not a 2024 revenue tally
The high-profile 2024 analyses—most prominently the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) report released in mid-2024—provide detailed estimates of tax payments for tax years like 2022 and model how contributions would change under different policy scenarios, rather than reporting a real-time 2024 tax-receipts number [1] [4]. Likewise, The Budget Lab’s work uses 2023 survey and administrative controls to estimate federal taxes paid in 2023 rather than calendar-year 2024 receipts [2]. Therefore any assertion about “2024 tax revenue from undocumented immigrants” must be read as comparing recent published estimates (2022–2023) and modeled projections rather than an audited 2024 total [4] [2].
2. The headline numbers: a consistent near‑$100 billion scale across recent studies
Multiple independent analyses cluster in the same ballpark: ITEP’s comprehensive estimate placed total federal, state, and local tax contributions at roughly $96.7 billion in 2022 [1], while the American Immigration Council summarized research indicating roughly $89.8 billion in total taxes for 2023 households led by undocumented immigrants [3]. The Budget Lab narrows to federal receipts and estimates about $66 billion in federal taxes in 2023, breaking that into payroll taxes (~$43 billion) and individual income taxes (~$22 billion) [2]. Those figures line up to portray a multi‑year trend of substantial — and broadly stable — contributions on the order of tens of billions annually rather than a sudden collapse or spike between 2020 and 2024 [1] [2] [3].
3. Why estimates differ: scope, data sources, and compliance assumptions
Differences between studies reflect divergent scopes and modeling choices: ITEP reports federal + state + local taxes and uses ACS/PUMS residual methods and state-level modeling [4] [1], The Budget Lab focuses on federal taxes using ASEC and tax‑modeling assumptions about withholding and filing probabilities [2], and the American Immigration Council aggregates multiple sources to report household-level totals [3]. Each study explicitly acknowledges undercounts, filing behavior, and assumed participation rates — e.g., IRS EITC participation benchmarks and assumed filing probabilities — which can shift totals by billions [4] [2].
4. Trend interpretation 2020–2023: growth with caveats, pandemic and labor-market effects
Across 2020–2023 the direction of estimates has generally been upward or stable in absolute dollars as the labor market recovered from the pandemic and immigration‑related population estimates were revised, but the sources caution that changes often reflect updated methods, population controls, and tax‑model assumptions as much as real year‑to‑year swings in behavior [4] [2] [5]. Macro estimates such as those cited by the Congressional and research summaries indicate larger fiscal impacts from immigration shifts over longer horizons, but do not replace year‑to‑year reconciliations of tax receipts attributable specifically to undocumented populations [5].
5. What would shift the pattern significantly: policy and compliance changes
All the studies note that granting work authorization or changing filing incentives would materially raise measured tax contributions: ITEP reports that full work authorization could boost documented tax contributions by about $40.2 billion per year, increasing a baseline near $96.7 billion to roughly $136.9 billion in modeled scenarios [6]. Similarly, improved compliance via data‑sharing or enforcement changes can alter the measured share of payroll vs. income taxes reported in any given year [2] [4].
6. Bottom line and limits of available evidence
The best available 2022–2023 estimates place undocumented immigrants’ tax contributions in the high‑tens of billions annually (roughly $90–$100B total in ITEP and related summaries, with ~$66B federal in The Budget Lab’s 2023 estimate), and there is no single published 2024 receipts number in the provided sources to demonstrate a clear departure from that trend; rather, published work in 2024 continues to show substantial, broadly stable contributions while emphasizing methodological uncertainty and the sensitivity of totals to policy and modeling choices [1] [2] [3] [4]. Readers should treat year‑to‑year “changes” cautiously because updated population controls, survey adjustments, and differing scopes explain much of the variation in reported totals [4] [2].