Tax Payments by Undocumented Immigrants
Undocumented immigrants paid $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022.
Federal, state, and local governments in the U.S. levy a wide array of taxes, and most of those taxes affect undocumented immigrants in some fashion. Much like their neighbors, undocumented immigrants pay sales and excise taxes on goods and services like utilities, household products, and gasoline. They pay property taxes either directly on their homes or indirectly when these taxes are folded into the price of their monthly rent. They also pay income and payroll taxes through automatic withholding from their paychecks or by filing income tax returns using Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs).
Here are some key findings from our 2024 report on the tax payments by undocumented immigrants:
Undocumented immigrants paid $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022. Most of that amount, $59.4 billion, was paid to the federal government while the remaining $37.3 billion was paid to state and local governments.
More than a third of the tax dollars paid by undocumented immigrants go toward payroll taxes dedicated to funding programs that these workers are barred from accessing. Undocumented immigrants paid $25.7 billion in Social Security taxes, $6.4 billion in Medicare taxes, and $1.8 billion in unemployment insurance taxes in 2022.
Six states raised more than $1 billion each in tax revenue from undocumented immigrants living within their borders. Those states are California ($8.5 billion), Texas ($4.9 billion), New York ($3.1 billion), Florida ($1.8 billion), Illinois ($1.5 billion), and New Jersey ($1.3 billion).