Budget Explorer · City of Atlanta

Where the money comes from, and where it goes

Comparable revenue, spending, and debt for City of Atlanta, on the same Census classification used for every city, county, and state in the Library — so the figures line up with peers rather than with the government's own budget book. Latest year: FY ending Jun 30, 2024. City of Atlanta's own FY2026 budget, in its own structure, follows below.

Audited actuals · Census classification · 499K residents

At a glance

Total revenue

$3.19B

$6,401 per resident

Total spending

$2.71B

$5,426 per resident

Spending per resident

$5,426

74th percentile of 71

Debt outstanding

$8.95B

$17,934 per resident · 96th percentile of 70

Own-source share

79%

43rd percentile of 71

Capital share

5th percentile of 71

Where the money comes from

$3.19B total

Own-source revenue (taxes, charges, interest) versus aid from other governments. Utility and trust revenue are shown alongside general revenue but run on their own books.

Property tax$703M22%
Selective sales taxes$258M8%
License & other taxes$136M4%
Federal aid$110M3%
State & local aid$505M16%
Charges & fees$1.05B33%
Interest, fines, other$153M5%
Utility revenue$284M9%

Own-source share of general revenue 79% · federal aid 4% · property tax is 64% of taxes

Where it goes

$2.71B total

Current operations plus capital outlay, grouped by Census function. Interest on debt and transfers to other governments are broken out so they are not hidden inside services.

Interest on debt$553M20%
Transportation$538M20%
General government$515M19%
Public safety$464M17%
Utilities (water, power, gas)$406M15%
Culture & recreation$128M5%
Public welfare$60M2%
Environment & housing$43M2%
Health & hospitals$2.3M0%

Show top functions with operating vs. capital ▸

Function	Category	Operating	Capital	Total
Water utility	Utilities (water, power, gas)	$406M	—	$406M
Air transportation	Transportation	$403M	—	$403M
Police protection	Public safety	$284M	$24M	$308M
General (unallocable)	General government	$220M	$28M	$248M
Highways	Transportation	$102M	$33M	$135M
Financial administration	General government	$123M	$5.2M	$128M
Parks & recreation	Culture & recreation	$122M	$5.3M	$128M
Fire protection	Public safety	$115M	$3.7M	$119M
Public welfare	Public welfare	$60M	—	$60M
Central staff services	General government	$49M	$10M	$59M
Judicial & legal	General government	$46M	$68K	$46M
General public buildings	General government	$32M	$91K	$32M
Sewerage	Environment & housing	$29M	—	$29M
Corrections (institutions)	Public safety	$18M	$134K	$18M

Trend · 3 fiscal years

Nominal dollars. The Census Bureau cautions that single-government series are edited only for aggregates — read direction, not decimals.

Revenue

+38% over 2 yrs

$2.31B → $3.19B

Spending

+54% over 2 yrs

$1.76B → $2.71B

Debt outstanding

+15% over 2 yrs

$7.76B → $8.95B

How it compares · 71 cities and counties in the Library

Percentile within the cohort on each place's latest Census year. Higher is not better — the last column says what a high reading means so you can decide whether it matters here.

Measure	City of Atlanta	Cohort median	Percentile	Higher means
Spending per resident	$5,426	$3,741	74th	more spent per resident
Revenue per resident	$6,401	$3,548	82nd	more raised per resident
Taxes per resident	$2,198	$1,328	80th	heavier own-tax load
Debt per resident	$17,934	$3,865	96th	more borrowed per resident
Own-source share of revenue	79%	81%	43rd	less dependent on aid
Federal aid share of revenue	4%	7%	26th	more exposed to federal cuts
Capital share of spending	4%	18%	5th	more building, less operating
Interest share of spending	20%	4%	99th	more spend servicing debt
Debt ÷ annual revenue	2.80×	1.05×	99th	more leveraged

About this data

Census classification categories, not this government's own budget structure. Figures are audited actuals for the fiscal year shown, not the adopted budget.
The Census Bureau edits unit-level data only to produce state and national aggregates and advises against reading it as a precise time series for any single government; treat year-over-year moves under ~5% as noise.
Employee-retirement-system revenue is excluded (published separately by Census). Utility and insurance-trust revenue are shown separately from general revenue.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances (Individual Unit public-use files), unit 132121194678 (Atlanta City). Retrieved 2026-09-07. Classification manual.

Spot an error, or know a better source for this place's adopted budget? Suggest an edit on the assessment.

Adopted budget · FY2026

City of Atlanta's own budget, in its own structure, read from its published budget book and checked against the total the document itself prints. This is the current year — more recent than the Census series above, but only comparable to this city's own history. Totals cover 28 departments.

$3.00B total

Non-Departmental$1.15B38%
Department of Aviation$427M14%
Department of Police Services$361M12%
Department of Watershed Management$343M11%
Department of Fire Services$181M6%
Department of Public Works$121M4%
Atlanta Department of Transportation$59M2%
Department of Parks and Recreation$57M2%
Department of Atlanta Information Management$40M1%
Department of Law$29M1%
Executive Offices$29M1%
Department of Finance$28M1%
All other (16)$176M6%

Parsed from the published budget book (pages 75-76, Summary of Operating Budget by Fund and Department) — all operating funds.
Checked against the book's own printed Total Operating Funds of $3,002,085,354; the parsed departments sum to $3,001,732,900, a difference of 0.012%.
Atlanta's site refuses non-browser clients, so unlike the other cities this book cannot be re-fetched by the scheduled job; it was read in a browser and must be refreshed manually. See scripts/adopted-budget/pdf-sources.json.
A department appearing in several funds is summed, so Non-Departmental combines citywide costs carried across the general, airport, watershed and insurance funds.
Atlanta adopted an FY2027 budget, but had published only a proposed book for that year when this was captured.
Source: FY2026 Adopted Budget Book (published budget book), retrieved 2026-09-07. Open the source document.

Looking for how this fits City of Atlanta's capacity to deliver? The fiscal dimension, binding constraint, and pathways live in the City of Atlanta capacity assessment.