Charges are public payments connected with a specific government service. These include tuition paid to a state university, payments to a public hospital, tolls on highways, sewerage fees, and parking meter payments collected by a city. However, Census excludes utility charges from these totals and reports them in their own category.
Although individual charges can be as little as a few dollars, in aggregate, charges provide a substantial amount of revenue for state and local governments. This is especially true in states that collect relatively little tax revenue.
- How much revenue do state and local governments raise from charges?
- Which charges generate the most revenue?
- Which states are most reliant on revenue from charges?
- Further reading
- Notes
How much revenue do state and local governments raise from charges?
State and local governments collected a combined $581 billion in revenue from charges in 2020, or 16 percent of general revenue. As a group, charges accounted for roughly as much revenue as property taxes and provided more revenue than general sales taxes and individual income taxes.
Charges are a large source of revenue for both states and local governments. State governments collected $245 billion (11 percent of general revenue) from charges in 2020 and local governments collected $336 billion (18 percent of general revenue).
Which charges generate the most revenue?
Among the $581 billion in revenue state and local government collected from charges in 2020, the largest contributors were hospital fees (charges collected from patients, private insurance companies, and public insurance programs such as Medicare), higher education payments (mostly tuition payments plus money spent on dormitories, athletic contests, and books), sewerage fees, and air transportation (hangar rentals and landing fees).
State governments collected the most revenue from charges related to higher education, hospitals, and highways (primarily from from toll roads). Local governments collected the most revenue from charges related to hospitals, sewerage, air transportation, solid waste management (fees for garbage and recycling collection and disposal), and parks and recreation (fees from swimming pools as well as camping areas). For more information on the different types of charges, see the US Census Bureau’s classification manual page.
|
Charges that Generated the Most Revenue, 2020 |
||
|
|
Revenue ($ billions) |
Percentage of general revenue |
|
State and local government (total) |
$581 |
16% |
|
1. Hospitals |
$188 |
5% |
|
2. Higher education—tuition |
$96 |
3% |
|
3. Sewerage |
$67 |
2% |
|
4. Air transportation |
$26 |
1% |
|
5. Higher education—receipts from sales |
$25 |
1% |
|
States (total) |
$245 |
11% |
|
1. Higher education—tuition |
$89 |
4% |
|
2. Hospitals |
$82 |
4% |
|
3. Higher education—receipts from sales |
$24 |
1% |
|
4. Highways |
$12 |
1% |
|
5. Natural resources |
$4 |
<1% |
|
Local governments |
$336 |
18% |
|
1. Hospitals |
$106 |
6% |
|
2. Sewerage |
$65 |
3% |
|
3. Air transportation |
$24 |
1% |
|
4. Solid waste management |
$20 |
1% |
|
5. Packs and recreation |
$10 |
1% |
Fines and forfeitures—financial penalties imposed for violations of the law—are not included on these lists and are considered a separate form of revenue.
Which states are most reliant on revenue from charges?
Among the 50 states in 2020, charges as a percentage of state and local general revenue ranged from 7 percent in Connecticut to 26 percent in South Carolina and Utah. Charges were 5 percent of general revenue in the District of Columbia. Charges accounted for more than 20 percent of state and local general revenue in 12 states, while Connecticut, Maine, and Vermont were the only states where charges accounted for less than 10 percent of state and local revenue.
Data: View and download each state's general revenue by source as a percentage of general revenue
Interactive data tools
State and Local Finance Data: Exploring the Census of Governments
Further reading
More Than Fines and Fees: Incorporating Equity into City Revenue Strategies
Aravind Boddupalli, Tracy Gordon, and Lourdes German (2021)
Tuition and State Appropriations
Sandy Baum, Michael McPherson, Breno Braga, and Sarah Minton (2018)
Ferguson city finances: not the new normal
Tracy Gordon and Sarah Gault (2015)
All revenue data are from the US Census Bureau’s Annual Survey of State Government Tax Collections. All dates in sections about revenue reference the fiscal year unless stated otherwise.
The Census of Governments’ measure of general charges includes the following categories: air transportation, education (e.g., school lunches, athletic contest tickets, college tuition), highways and toll roads, hospitals, housing and community development, natural resources, parking facilities, parks and recreation, sewerage, solid waste management, water transportation, and all other “not elsewhere classified.”