Budget Explorer · City of Houston

Where the money comes from, and where it goes

Comparable revenue, spending, and debt for City of Houston, 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 Houston's own FY2027 budget, in its own structure, follows below.

Audited actuals · Census classification · 2.30M residents

At a glance

Total revenue

$7.59B

$3,294 per resident

Total spending

$6.83B

$2,966 per resident

Spending per resident

$2,966

37th percentile of 71

Debt outstanding

$12.4B

$5,400 per resident · 65th percentile of 70

Own-source share

84%

63rd percentile of 71

Capital share

21%

64th percentile of 71

Where the money comes from

$7.59B 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$1.82B24%
General sales tax$902M12%
Selective sales taxes$258M3%
License & other taxes$186M2%
Federal aid$438M6%
State & local aid$667M9%
Charges & fees$1.77B23%
Interest, fines, other$658M9%
Utility revenue$888M12%

Own-source share of general revenue 84% · federal aid 7% · property tax is 58% of taxes

Where it goes

$6.83B 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.

Public safety$2.34B34%
Transportation$1.14B17%
Environment & housing$981M14%
General government$932M14%
Interest on debt$631M9%
Utilities (water, power, gas)$417M6%
Health & hospitals$174M3%
Culture & recreation$172M3%
Transfers to other governments$49M1%

Show top functions with operating vs. capital ▸

Function	Category	Operating	Capital	Total
Fire protection	Public safety	$1.19B	$8.5M	$1.20B
Police protection	Public safety	$1.01B	$34M	$1.05B
Air transportation	Transportation	$296M	$494M	$791M
Sewerage	Environment & housing	$299M	$402M	$700M
Central staff services	General government	$414M	$4.8M	$419M
Water utility	Utilities (water, power, gas)	$248M	$169M	$417M
Highways	Transportation	$140M	$194M	$335M
General (unallocable)	General government	$257M	$57M	$314M
Health	Health & hospitals	$172M	$2.8M	$174M
Solid waste management	Environment & housing	$113M	$30M	$144M
Housing & community development	Environment & housing	$135M	$803K	$136M
Parks & recreation	Culture & recreation	$94M	$16M	$110M
Protective inspection & regulation	Public safety	$92M	$1.3M	$93M
Financial administration	General government	$76M	$1.1M	$77M

Trend · 3 fiscal years

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

Revenue

+6% over 2 yrs

$7.14B → $7.59B

Spending

+16% over 2 yrs

$5.87B → $6.83B

Debt outstanding

-3% over 2 yrs

$12.8B → $12.4B

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 Houston	Cohort median	Percentile	Higher means
Spending per resident	$2,966	$3,741	37th	more spent per resident
Revenue per resident	$3,294	$3,548	43rd	more raised per resident
Taxes per resident	$1,376	$1,328	54th	heavier own-tax load
Debt per resident	$5,400	$3,865	65th	more borrowed per resident
Own-source share of revenue	84%	81%	63rd	less dependent on aid
Federal aid share of revenue	7%	7%	47th	more exposed to federal cuts
Capital share of spending	21%	18%	64th	more building, less operating
Interest share of spending	9%	4%	95th	more spend servicing debt
Debt ÷ annual revenue	1.64×	1.05×	79th	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 482201176169 (Houston 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 · FY2027

City of Houston's own budget, in its own structure, read from the workbook its budget office publishes 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.

$9.25B total

Houston Public Works$3.65B39%
Police Department$1.25B14%
Houston Airport System$802M9%
Fire Department$719M8%
Human Resources$558M6%
General Debt Service$538M6%
General Government$291M3%
General Services$231M2%
Houston Information Technology Services$161M2%
Convention & Entertainment$141M2%
Solid Waste Management$137M1%
Administration and Regulatory Affairs$122M1%
All other (16)$647M7%

Published on the city's budget office site rather than its open-data portal, whose budget datasets stop at FY2025.
Expenditure rows only; the workbook's revenue rows are excluded from these totals.
Source: FY2027 Adopted Budget raw data (published workbook), retrieved 2026-09-08. Re-run this query.

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