How do taxpayer expenses for presidential family travel differ between Trump and other recent presidents?
Executive summary
Analyses and watchdog reports find that Trump-era and Trump-family travel imposed markedly larger Secret Service and support costs on taxpayers than several recent presidencies, driven by high numbers of protected trips by adult children and frequent stays at private properties like Mar-a-Lago (CREW reports; GAO review) [1] [2]. Independent trackers and news accounts also cite very large dollar figures for specific Trump trips — for example, reports of $60 million increases in Secret Service protective travel and documented reimbursements to Treasury for campaign-related aircraft use that differ sharply between presidents [1] [3].
1. Trump’s family travel: a headline driver of higher protection costs
Watchdog investigations by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) documented an unusually high volume of protected travel tied to the Trump family — far above averages for earlier administrations — and attributed much of the increase to adult children traveling to promote Trump-branded businesses; CREW frames this spike as driving substantial taxpayer subsidy of private enterprise [1].
2. Secret Service workload: travel-days and agents on the move
Analyses of travel-days show dramatic differences when family members and associated travel are counted. CREW and fact-checkers cite figures of thousands of protective travel-days for the Trump family and observe that, on some measures, agent travel-days protecting Trump plus family substantially exceeded those recorded early in prior presidencies [1] [4].
3. Specific-dollar claims: reported increases vs. audit limits
Several outlets and watchdogs have cited large dollar figures tied to Trump-era travel — for instance, CREW’s reporting discusses a roughly $60 million increase in protective travel compared with prior years — while other pieces focus on individual trip cost estimates [1]. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) also examined selected Mar‑a‑Lago trips and specific overseas trips by adult children to quantify agency costs and the extent of interagency reporting [2].
4. How Mar‑a‑Lago and private-property visits change the calculus
Journalistic and GAO reporting emphasize that location matters: trips to private properties on the coast or to nontraditional venues can require additional Coast Guard, local, and logistics support, raising costs compared with routine domestic or fully official foreign travel [2] [5]. CREW highlighted that many Trump-family trips were to locations tied to Trump business interests, raising concerns about the private gain from taxpayer-funded security [1].
5. Campaign travel and reimbursements: uneven comparisons
Campaign-era rules allow campaigns to reimburse the government for use of official aircraft when travel is campaign-related. Reporting shows Trump’s 2020 campaign reimbursed nearly $4.7 million for aircraft use, while some accounts note far smaller reimbursements from other campaigns at comparable stages; the reporting stresses differences depend on counsel office allocations and later reconciliations [3].
6. Methodology matters: counting “vacation days” vs. “protected trips”
Public disputes over “vacation” or “time away” counts (for Biden, Trump and others) show that tallies diverge depending on definitions — RNC social-media counts, Snopes analyses, and media outlets arrive at different totals for Biden’s days away, and similar definitional choices affect comparisons with Trump-era figures [6] [7]. CREW’s approach focuses on protected trips and agent travel-days, which produces larger relative differences for the Trump family [1].
7. Oversight gaps and reporting limits noted by auditors
The GAO review spotlighted gaps in how agencies document and report travel-related costs under the Presidential Protection Assistance Act and recommended better interagency accounting; that audit framing limits the ability to make perfectly precise cross-presidential dollar comparisons using publicly available agency filings alone [2].
8. Competing narratives: accountability advocates vs. presidential defenders
Watchdogs argue the numbers reveal improper public subsidy of private business and excessive public expense [1]. Defenders point to security obligations that bind the Secret Service regardless of venue, and to inherent difficulty separating official, security, and personal travel [2] [4]. Both sides rely on different metrics: total dollars, agent travel‑days, or counts of protected trips.
9. What’s missing from current reporting
Available sources do not provide a single, reconciled, administration‑wide ledger that apples-to-apples compares total taxpayer travel spending across recent presidents; GAO found agency reporting gaps and CREW/press efforts rely on reconstructed tallies from partial records [2]. Not found in current reporting: a definitive cross-administration per‑trip average cost derived from consistent federal accounting available to the public.
10. Bottom line for taxpayers and reporters
Current reporting by CREW, GAO and news outlets converge on one practical conclusion: Trump-era and Trump-family travel, as counted by protected trips and agent travel-days, added substantially to Secret Service and associated costs compared with several predecessors, and those costs are more stark when travel intersects private business interests or nontraditional venues; precise dollar-for-dollar presidential comparisons remain constrained by reporting gaps and methodological differences across sources [1] [2] [3].