Budget Explorer · Government of the District of Columbia

Where the money comes from, and where it goes

Comparable revenue, spending, and debt for Government of the District of Columbia, 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. Government of the District of Columbia's own FY2027 budget, in its own structure, follows below.

Audited actuals · Census classification · 672K residents

At a glance

Total revenue

$21.5B

$32,072 per resident

Total spending

$22.0B

$32,704 per resident

Spending per resident

$32,704

99th percentile of 71

Debt outstanding

$19.1B

$28,409 per resident · 98th percentile of 70

Own-source share

62%

12th percentile of 71

Capital share

11%

22nd percentile of 71

Where the money comes from

$21.5B 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$3.08B14%
General sales tax$2.00B9%
Selective sales taxes$466M2%
Income taxes$4.27B20%
License & other taxes$626M3%
Federal aid$7.04B33%
State & local aid$1.02B5%
Charges & fees$1.06B5%
Interest, fines, other$1.55B7%
Utility revenue$297M1%
Liquor & insurance trust$140M1%

Own-source share of general revenue 62% · federal aid 33% · property tax is 30% of taxes

Where it goes

$22.0B 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 welfare$5.82B26%
Education$4.26B19%
General government$3.57B16%
Environment & housing$2.41B11%
Public safety$1.59B7%
Transfers to other governments$958M4%
Health & hospitals$827M4%
Interest on debt$800M4%
Transportation$772M4%
Utilities (water, power, gas)$503M2%
Culture & recreation$466M2%

Show top functions with operating vs. capital ▸

Function	Category	Operating	Capital	Total
Public welfare	Public welfare	$5.81B	$12M	$5.82B
K-12 education	Education	$3.75B	$314M	$4.06B
General (unallocable)	General government	$1.59B	$758M	$2.34B
Housing & community development	Environment & housing	$1.44B	$75M	$1.52B
Police protection	Public safety	$733M	$20M	$753M
Highways	Transportation	$207M	$526M	$733M
Sewerage	Environment & housing	$326M	$295M	$620M
Health	Health & hospitals	$577M	$982K	$578M
Water utility	Utilities (water, power, gas)	$262M	$241M	$503M
Parks & recreation	Culture & recreation	$350M	$26M	$377M
Judicial & legal	General government	$343M	$3.0M	$346M
Financial administration	General government	$284M	$18M	$303M
Corrections (institutions)	Public safety	$301M	$665K	$302M
Fire protection	Public safety	$277M	$11M	$288M

Trend · 3 fiscal years

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

Revenue

+8% over 2 yrs

$19.9B → $21.5B

Spending

+7% over 2 yrs

$20.5B → $22.0B

Debt outstanding

+3% over 2 yrs

$18.5B → $19.1B

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	Government of the District of Columbia	Cohort median	Percentile	Higher means
Spending per resident	$32,704	$3,741	99th	more spent per resident
Revenue per resident	$32,072	$3,548	99th	more raised per resident
Taxes per resident	$15,543	$1,328	99th	heavier own-tax load
Debt per resident	$28,409	$3,865	98th	more borrowed per resident
Own-source share of revenue	62%	81%	12th	less dependent on aid
Federal aid share of revenue	33%	7%	99th	more exposed to federal cuts
Capital share of spending	11%	18%	22nd	more building, less operating
Interest share of spending	4%	4%	51st	more spend servicing debt
Debt ÷ annual revenue	0.89×	1.05×	38th	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 112001124214 (Washington DC 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.

Approved budget · FY2027

Government of the District of Columbia'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 112 departments.

$13.8B total

District of Columbia Public Charter Schools$1.46B11%
District of Columbia Public Schools$1.46B11%
Department of Health Care Finance$1.43B10%
Repayment of Loans and Interest$1.30B9%
Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority$794M6%
Metropolitan Police Department$680M5%
Department of Human Services$652M5%
Department of General Services$483M4%
Office of the State Superintendent of Education$319M2%
Fire and Emergency Medical Services D epartment$304M2%
Department of Behavioral Health$288M2%
Pay-As-You-Go Capital Fund$271M2%
All other (100)$4.35B32%

Parsed from the published budget book (pages 286-292) — General Fund — local funds, dedicated taxes and other funds.
Figures are checked against the total the document itself prints before publishing.
General Fund only. The District's gross-funds appendix could not be parsed reliably: its enterprise-fund rows extract with the digits spaced out character by character.
The District is a combined state and city government, so these agency figures include functions that other cities' states carry.
Published as a shared document rather than on an open-data portal; the District publishes no machine-readable agency appropriation dataset.
Source: FY2027 Approved Budget, Volume 1 (Appendix D) (published budget book), retrieved 2026-09-08. Open the source document.

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