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How much tax revenue did undocumented immigrants contribute to federal and state coffers in 2024?
Executive summary
The best available, widely cited estimate comes from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP): undocumented immigrants paid roughly $96–$100 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022, with ITEP’s July 2024 study commonly summarized as “nearly $97 billion” or “almost $100 billion” [1] [2] [3]. State-level breakdowns in that work show California ($8.5B), Texas ($4.9B) and New York ($3.1B) among the largest contributors, and ITEP estimates that granting work authorization would raise their tax contributions by about $40.2 billion to roughly $136.9 billion [4] [1].
1. What the headline numbers mean — nearly $97–100 billion in taxes
The ITEP report is the anchor for most coverage: it estimates that about 10.9 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. paid nearly $97 billion (often rounded to “almost $100 billion”) in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022, including federal income and payroll taxes as well as state and local sales, excise and property taxes [1] [3] [5]. Multiple outlets and advocacy groups have repeated that figure and its rounding, so the consensus in reporting ties back to ITEP’s analysis [3] [5] [6].
2. How ITEP gets to that total — methods and assumptions
ITEP’s approach applies tax-rate estimates from its Who Pays? model and related analyses to income and demographic profiles of the undocumented population, and it uses microsimulation to allocate tax types (federal income, payroll, state and local sales, property, etc.) [7]. The study also infers payments from data on filers with ITINs and other administrative sources; reporting notes ITEP’s use of these methods to estimate that undocumented people pay a large share of payroll and consumption taxes [2] [8].
3. Federal vs. state/local split and notable state figures
ITEP’s material and summaries show the contributions span levels: roughly $19.5B in federal income taxes and $32.3B in federal payroll taxes are cited in downstream summaries, with about $37.3B at the state and local level in one aggregation — sums that together approximate the near-$97B total reported by several outlets and organizations [9]. ITEP, and outlets summarizing it, highlight state tallies (California ~$8.5B, Texas ~$4.9B, New York ~$3.1B, Florida ~$1.8B, Illinois ~$1.5B, New Jersey ~$1.3B) [4] [1].
4. “What if” scenarios — legalization and deportation effects
ITEP models policy counterfactuals. It estimates that granting work authorization to undocumented immigrants would increase annual tax contributions by about $40.2 billion (to roughly $136.9B), with about $33.1B of that increase accruing to the federal government and $7.1B to state/local governments [4]. Conversely, organizations and summaries highlight that losing 1 million undocumented residents from the tax base would cost about $8.9 billion annually in tax revenue — a per‑million shorthand repeated in several state analyses and advocacy write-ups [10] [11].
5. Areas of agreement, limits and competing perspectives
Journalists and policy shops agree that undocumented immigrants do contribute substantial taxes and often pay payroll and consumption taxes despite limited access to benefits [8] [1]. But available reporting also signals methodological limits: the central numbers are model-driven estimates that rely on assumptions about incomes, tax filing behavior (including ITIN use), and how indirect taxes are ultimately borne — and ITEP itself notes it does not monetize broader economic ripple effects, which could push totals higher [7] [1]. Some outlets and groups round the $96.7B figure up to “nearly $100B” for headlines [3] [5]; that rhetorical choice is common but should not be confused with a new independent estimate.
6. What reporting does not (clearly) say
Available sources do not mention a single, government-produced, 2024 figure that directly lists 2024 tax-year collections from undocumented immigrants; instead, the public discussion rests on ITEP’s 2024 study covering 2022 data and modelled projections to consider 2024 policy scenarios [1] [7]. If you need an official IRS or Treasury breakdown for 2024 specifically, that is not present in the cited reporting and is not found in these sources [2].
7. Bottom line for readers and policymakers
Multiple reputable outlets and policy organizations base their claims on ITEP’s analysis and report that undocumented immigrants contributed roughly $96–$100 billion in federal, state and local taxes in 2022, with meaningful state-by-state variation and modelled policy impacts that could raise or lower that total [1] [4] [3]. That estimate is the best available in current reporting, but it rests on modeling choices and rounding conventions that matter for precise accounting and for translating figures to 2024 budget forecasts [7] [1].