How much money did illegal immigrants pay in taxes in 2025?
Executive summary
The available, reputable estimates do not provide a single, audited total for how much “illegal” or undocumented immigrants paid in taxes in calendar year 2025; the most-cited, methodical studies report that undocumented immigrants paid roughly $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022 and about $89.8 billion in 2023, figures widely reported by ITEP, the American Immigration Council and others [1] [2] [3]. Analysts also model that granting work authorization would boost those receipts by roughly $40.2 billion a year, illustrating that the published totals are snapshots tied to methodology and legal context rather than a single fixed number for 2025 [1] [4].
1. What the best public estimates actually measure
The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) produced the most-cited, comprehensive estimate showing undocumented immigrants contributed $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022 — a number picked up by advocacy groups and news fact-checkers as the leading benchmark for tax contributions by people without authorization [1] [3] [5]. The American Immigration Council and related organizations report similar magnitudes and translate them into state-by-state totals — for example, California’s undocumented residents contributed about $8.5 billion in state and local taxes in 2022 — confirming that the $90–$100 billion range comes from convergent analyses rather than a single partisan source [3] [6].
2. Why a single 2025 figure is not available in these sources
None of the supplied reporting offers a definitive, audited total for taxes paid by undocumented immigrants in the calendar year 2025; the prominent studies and news pieces instead publish estimates for 2022 and occasionally 2023 and then model counterfactuals for legalization scenarios [1] [2] [3]. Government tax collections do not separately tag amounts by immigration status in public datasets, so researchers rely on indirect methods — ITIN filings, survey-based population estimates, and tax incidence modeling — which produce estimates tied to particular years and assumptions, not a contemporary 2025 ledger [7] [5].
3. How researchers get to the $90–$100 billion range
Researchers combine demographic estimates of the undocumented population (around 10.9–11 million in the cited work) with IRS filing patterns — including Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) returns and payroll tax withholding data — and tax-incidence models to estimate federal, state and local tax payments, yielding the near-$97 billion headline figure for 2022 and similar totals reported for 2023 [1] [7] [3]. Independent fact-checkers such as Reuters reiterated that ITEP’s methodology supports the “nearly $97 billion in 2022” assessment, underscoring that the number is an estimate grounded in standard tax-research techniques rather than an administrative count [5] [8].
4. What changes could move the number up or down in 2025
Two factors cited in the reporting would materially change an annual total: changes in filing behavior driven by enforcement rhetoric and policy, and changes in legal status or work authorization that would raise wages and compliance; researchers model that providing work authorization to the undocumented population would increase tax contributions by about $40.2 billion annually to roughly $136.9 billion [1] [4] [9]. Conversely, heightened deportation enforcement or fear of filing could depress ITIN filings and reduce measured tax payments even if economic activity remains, a dynamic flagged by advocacy groups ahead of Tax Day 2025 [9].
5. Politics, sources and the agendas behind the headlines
Advocacy organizations such as Americans for Tax Fairness and the American Immigration Council amplify the ITEP findings to argue that undocumented immigrants are net contributors and often pay higher effective state and local rates than the top 1% in many states, which aligns with their policy goals [10] [2]. ITEP frames its work as nonpartisan tax analysis but explicitly models legalization scenarios favorable to broader policy arguments, and news fact-checkers like Reuters have independently confirmed the core methodological claims while noting limits to public data [1] [5] [8].
6. Bottom line answer
There is no authoritative, source-backed figure specifically for “how much undocumented/illegal immigrants paid in taxes in 2025” in the supplied reporting; the best available, peer-cited estimates place annual tax payments in the roughly $90–$100 billion range for recent years (about $96.7 billion in 2022 and roughly $89.8 billion reported for 2023 by major analyses), with modeled scenarios showing the number could rise by about $40.2 billion under work-authorization policies — all of which should be understood as well-founded estimates, not an audited 2025 cash total [1] [2] [3] [4] [5].