Budget Explorer · City of San Jose

Where the money comes from, and where it goes

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

Audited actuals · Census classification · 971K residents

At a glance

Total revenue

$3.69B

$3,799 per resident

Total spending

$3.19B

$3,284 per resident

Spending per resident

$3,284

43rd percentile of 71

Debt outstanding

$3.75B

$3,862 per resident · 49th percentile of 70

Own-source share

89%

85th percentile of 71

Capital share

13%

36th percentile of 71

Where the money comes from

$3.69B 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$748M20%
General sales tax$338M9%
Selective sales taxes$244M7%
License & other taxes$294M8%
Federal aid$68M2%
State & local aid$263M7%
Charges & fees$854M23%
Interest, fines, other$317M9%
Utility revenue$564M15%

Own-source share of general revenue 89% · federal aid 2% · property tax is 46% of taxes

Where it goes

$3.19B 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$827M26%
Environment & housing$673M21%
Utilities (water, power, gas)$473M15%
Transportation$462M14%
General government$373M12%
Culture & recreation$287M9%
Interest on debt$95M3%

Show top functions with operating vs. capital ▸

Function	Category	Operating	Capital	Total
Police protection	Public safety	$484M	$37M	$521M
Electric utility	Utilities (water, power, gas)	$413M	—	$413M
Central staff services	General government	$322M	—	$322M
Highways	Transportation	$99M	$219M	$318M
Housing & community development	Environment & housing	$200M	$83M	$284M
Fire protection	Public safety	$280M	—	$280M
Parks & recreation	Culture & recreation	$165M	$60M	$226M
Sewerage	Environment & housing	$198M	—	$198M
Solid waste management	Environment & housing	$192M	—	$192M
Air transportation	Transportation	$129M	—	$129M
Libraries	Culture & recreation	$62M	—	$62M
Water utility	Utilities (water, power, gas)	$59M	—	$59M
General (unallocable)	General government	$34M	$17M	$51M
Protective inspection & regulation	Public safety	$26M	—	$26M

Trend · 3 fiscal years

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

Revenue

+11% over 2 yrs

$3.33B → $3.69B

Spending

+13% over 2 yrs

$2.81B → $3.19B

Debt outstanding

-2% over 2 yrs

$3.81B → $3.75B

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 Jose	Cohort median	Percentile	Higher means
Spending per resident	$3,284	$3,741	43rd	more spent per resident
Revenue per resident	$3,799	$3,548	56th	more raised per resident
Taxes per resident	$1,672	$1,328	65th	heavier own-tax load
Debt per resident	$3,862	$3,865	49th	more borrowed per resident
Own-source share of revenue	89%	81%	85th	less dependent on aid
Federal aid share of revenue	2%	7%	18th	more exposed to federal cuts
Capital share of spending	13%	18%	36th	more building, less operating
Interest share of spending	3%	4%	33rd	more spend servicing debt
Debt ÷ annual revenue	1.02×	1.05×	46th	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 062085100745 (San Jose 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 Jose'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 21 departments.

$6.33B total

Environmental Services$1.33B21%
Airport$952M15%
Community Energy$829M13%
Transportation$604M10%
Police$582M9%
Housing$504M8%
Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services$364M6%
Fire$311M5%
Public Works$268M4%
Human Resources$155M2%
Planning, Building & Code Enforcement$108M2%
Library$91M1%
All other (9)$234M4%

San José had not published its FY2026-27 adopted budget when this was captured — the city's 2026-2027 page lists only Fees and Charges under adopted budgets — so this is FY2025-26, its most recent adopted year. Expected to be superseded around late 2026.
Each department's own total across every fund. The four printed department-group subtotals come to $6,409,962,107; the departments themselves come to $6,329,811,943. The $80,150,164 difference is a handful of capital-programme lines that sit inside those groups without belonging to any department, and are excluded here.
Departments repeat once per fund in the source, with a total line each; only the totals are read, so no fund is counted twice.
Excludes the book's Other Expenditures block ($736,438,264 of reserves, debt service and transfers), which is not departmental spending.
San José's site refuses non-browser clients, so this document is refreshed by hand rather than by the scheduled job.
The city publishes no budget dataset on its open-data portal.
Source: 2025-2026 Adopted Operating Budget — Summary of Fund Uses by Department/Function (published budget book), retrieved 2026-09-08. Open the source document.

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