U.S. Census of Population and Housing Basics : When Are Data Released?

As of January 2021, data from the 2020 Decennial Census is being tabulated and verified.  It is not yet available to the public.  See the Important Dates page from the Census Bureau for updates on data availability from the 2020 Decennial Census.

The American Community Survey (ACS) is an ongoing statistical survey that samples a small percentage of the population every year. Different parts of the survey are always being surveyed, and new data products are released continually.

American Community Survey Data Releases

To complicate matters, different communities are surveyed over 1 or 5 years, or both, depending on the size of the community. (And there was a 3-year survey, for areas with populations of 20,000+, from 2005 to 2013). This has implications for research, and comparing different data products. For more on these, see

• The Census Bureau's page When to use 1-year, 3-year, or 5-year estimates.
• "Understanding and Using ACS Single-Year and Multiyear Estimates," page 9 in the PDF document A Compass for Understanding and Using American Community Survey Data: What General Data Users Need to Know.

For guidance on when to use which data set, see the Census Bureau's page When to use 1-year, 3-year, or 5-year estimates. Which estimates you use depends on how you want to balance currency and sample size/reliability/precision.

It takes time to collect, compile, and publish Census data! Data from each survey are released over time, by geographic level, and states. This is the case for all Census surveys.