Explainer | Revenue
Where does the federal government’s money come from?
Income taxes, payroll taxes, customs duties and more: the $4.85 trillion revenue mix, sourced line by line.
Key takeaways
- Total federal revenue (receipts) in FY2026: $4.85 trillion.
- Individual income taxes ($2.55T) and payroll taxes ($1.61T) together supply about 86% of all revenue.
- Customs duties ($167B) — tariffs — are a real but small slice: about 3.5% of revenue.
Methodology. Figures are fiscal-year-to-date receipts by source from the U.S. Treasury’s Monthly Treasury Statement, Table 9, for FY2026 through August 31, 2026 (the latest published month). Rounded to the nearest billion.
The full ranking
| Revenue source | FY2026 receipts | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Individual income taxes | $2,548B | 52.6% |
| Employment and general retirement (payroll taxes) | $1,607B | 33.2% |
| Corporation income taxes | $295B | 6.1% |
| Customs duties | $167B | 3.5% |
| Excise taxes | $93B | 1.9% |
| Unemployment insurance | $49B | 1.0% |
| Miscellaneous receipts | $43B | 0.9% |
| Estate and gift taxes | $36B | 0.7% |
| Other retirement | $8B | 0.2% |
| Total receipts | $4,845B | 100% |
Source: U.S. Department of the Treasury, Monthly Treasury Statement, Table 9, August 2026. Shares calculated by The Daily Ledger; may not sum to 100% due to rounding.
What the ranking reveals
Two taxes do nearly all the work. Individual income taxes and payroll taxes — the taxes withheld from paychecks — supply $4.15 trillion of the $4.85 trillion total. Every other source combined is about one-seventh of revenue.
Corporate taxes are a small slice. At $295 billion (6.1%), corporate income taxes contribute roughly one-ninth what individuals pay. This share has shrunk over decades as rates fell and the economy shifted.
Tariffs are visible but minor in revenue terms. Customs duties brought in $167 billion — real money, and the subject of intense debate — but about 3.5% of total revenue. Even large tariff increases move the deficit far less than changes to income or payroll taxes.
The estate tax is a rounding error. At $36 billion, estate and gift taxes are 0.7% of revenue — significant to the families who pay them, negligible to the federal budget.
Revenue vs. the deficit
Revenue of $4.85 trillion against spending of $6.81 trillion leaves the $1.97 trillion deficit. One way to see the scale: the government would need roughly 40% more revenue — or equivalently deep spending cuts — to balance the budget in a single year. That is why deficit debates always come back to the two biggest revenue sources and the five biggest spending categories.
Sources
- U.S. Department of the Treasury, Monthly Treasury Statement, Table 9 — receipts by source, FY2026 through August 2026 (fiscaldata.treasury.gov)
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