Budget Explorer · City of San Antonio

Where the money comes from, and where it goes

Comparable revenue, spending, and debt for City of San Antonio, 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 Sep 30, 2023. City of San Antonio's own FY2026 budget, in its own structure, follows below.

Audited actuals · Census classification · 1.47M residents

At a glance

Total revenue

$7.25B

$4,922 per resident

Total spending

$7.35B

$4,993 per resident

Spending per resident

$4,993

67th percentile of 71

Debt outstanding

$13.9B

$9,460 per resident · 85th percentile of 70

Own-source share

85%

70th percentile of 71

Capital share

26%

80th percentile of 71

Where the money comes from

$7.25B 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$723M10%
General sales tax$515M7%
Selective sales taxes$118M2%
License & other taxes$85M1%
Federal aid$86M1%
State & local aid$407M6%
Charges & fees$828M11%
Interest, fines, other$563M8%
Utility revenue$3.92B54%

Own-source share of general revenue 85% · federal aid 3% · property tax is 50% of taxes

Where it goes

$7.35B 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.

Utilities (water, power, gas)$3.68B50%
Public safety$910M12%
Environment & housing$633M9%
Interest on debt$570M8%
General government$552M8%
Transportation$357M5%
Culture & recreation$277M4%
Public welfare$199M3%
Health & hospitals$96M1%
Education$82M1%
Transfers to other governments$1.2M0%

Show top functions with operating vs. capital ▸

Function	Category	Operating	Capital	Total
Electric utility	Utilities (water, power, gas)	$1.50B	$893M	$2.39B
Gas utility	Utilities (water, power, gas)	$499M	$158M	$656M
Water utility	Utilities (water, power, gas)	$275M	$357M	$632M
Police protection	Public safety	$530M	$5.5M	$536M
Sewerage	Environment & housing	$160M	$215M	$375M
General (unallocable)	General government	$232M	$130M	$362M
Fire protection	Public safety	$357M	$2.2M	$359M
Parks & recreation	Culture & recreation	$175M	$55M	$229M
Highways	Transportation	$184M	$25M	$209M
Public welfare	Public welfare	$198M	$835K	$199M
Solid waste management	Environment & housing	$156M	$4.5M	$161M
Air transportation	Transportation	$86M	$54M	$140M
Health	Health & hospitals	$95M	$1.3M	$96M
Housing & community development	Environment & housing	$94M	$1.3M	$96M

Trend · 3 fiscal years

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

Revenue

+15% over 2 yrs

$6.28B → $7.25B

Spending

+18% over 2 yrs

$6.23B → $7.35B

Debt outstanding

+23% over 2 yrs

$11.3B → $13.9B

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 San Antonio	Cohort median	Percentile	Higher means
Spending per resident	$4,993	$3,741	67th	more spent per resident
Revenue per resident	$4,922	$3,548	67th	more raised per resident
Taxes per resident	$979	$1,328	25th	heavier own-tax load
Debt per resident	$9,460	$3,865	85th	more borrowed per resident
Own-source share of revenue	85%	81%	70th	less dependent on aid
Federal aid share of revenue	3%	7%	19th	more exposed to federal cuts
Capital share of spending	26%	18%	80th	more building, less operating
Interest share of spending	8%	4%	89th	more spend servicing debt
Debt ÷ annual revenue	1.92×	1.05×	91st	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 482029175988 (San Antonio 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 San Antonio'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 51 departments.

$4.39B total

Airport$798M18%
Police$671M15%
Fire$444M10%
Debt Service$326M7%
Transfers$324M7%
Public Works$307M7%
Capital Delivery Department$222M5%
Solid Waste Management$156M4%
Convention & Sports Facilities$120M3%
Parks & Recreation$111M3%
Neighborhood and Housing Services$87M2%
Human Services$85M2%
All other (39)$735M17%

Parsed from the published budget book (page 265, All Funds Budget Summary — Departmental Appropriations) — all funds, operating plus capital.
Checked against the book's own printed Total Appropriations of $4,388,966,534; the parsed departments sum to $4,385,794,321, a difference of 0.07%.
This is the gross figure. The book also prints Total Net Appropriations of $4,064,762,529 after removing transfers between city funds, which appear here as their own line.
San Antonio's site refuses non-browser clients, so this book is refreshed by hand rather than by the scheduled job.
The rows on this page print their figures before the department name, the reverse of every other book here.
San Antonio's OpenGov portal carries no adopted dataset — only actuals, a revised FY2026 and a proposed FY2027.
Source: FY2026 Adopted Budget (All Funds Budget Summary) (published budget book), retrieved 2026-09-08. Open the source document.

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