How Many Americans Owe the IRS? Tax Debt Statistics for 2026
No government agency publishes a count of how many Americans owe back taxes.
What the IRS, the Treasury and their watchdogs do publish is a handful of figures that get quoted as if they measured the same thing, when they don’t.
This page puts every one of them in one place, sourced to the original government document, along with a state-by-state table built from raw IRS Statistics of Income data.
Key Findings
- 13.1 million delinquent tax accounts were open in IRS collection at the end of fiscal year 2025, carrying $211.5 billion in assessed tax, penalties and interest.
- $540.3 billion in assessed federal tax was unpaid as of September 30, 2025, and the IRS expects to collect $91.4 billion of it, about 17 cents on the dollar.
- 4,870,810 taxpayers were paying the IRS through an installment agreement at the end of fiscal year 2025, the most since the IRS began publishing the figure for fiscal year 2018, and up 31% in three years.
- 43.6 million returns were filed with a balance due for tax year 2023, 27.2% of all individual returns, owing a combined $264.5 billion.
- 5,464 offers in compromise were accepted in fiscal year 2025, a 14.1% acceptance rate, down from 42.1% two years earlier even though applications rose 29%.
- 2,225 revenue officers were working IRS field collection cases as of January 10, 2026, down 35% from 3,418 at the end of fiscal year 2024.
- 50 property seizures were carried out by the IRS in fiscal year 2025, down from 432 in fiscal year 2014.
- $696 billion is the IRS’s estimate of tax owed but not paid on time for tax year 2022, including $94 billion that people reported correctly and simply didn’t pay.
Table of Contents
How Many Americans Owe the IRS?
The honest answer is that nobody knows the exact number, because the IRS doesn’t publish a count of individual people with unpaid federal tax.
It publishes counts of accounts, dollars and returns instead.
Here is every figure you are likely to see quoted, what it actually measures, and its latest value.
| Measure | Latest figure | What it counts |
|---|---|---|
| Taxpayer delinquent accounts | 13,112,485 (end of FY2025) |
Open collection accounts. Each account is one tax type for one tax period, so a person who owes for three years has three accounts. |
| Balance on delinquent accounts | $211.5 billion (end of FY2025) |
Assessed tax, penalties and interest on those accounts, not counting penalties and interest that have built up but have not yet been assessed. |
| Installment agreements in effect | 4,870,810 (end of FY2025) |
Taxpayers currently paying the IRS on a plan. This is the only collection figure the IRS reports in units of people. |
| Total unpaid assessments | $540.3 billion (Sept. 30, 2025) |
Every dollar of assessed federal tax still unpaid, including amounts the IRS has written off as uncollectible. |
| Net federal taxes receivable | $91.4 billion (Sept. 30, 2025) |
The part of unpaid assessments the IRS actually expects to collect. |
| Returns filed with a balance due | 43,577,930 (tax year 2023) |
Individual returns that showed tax owed when they were filed. Most are paid with the return, so this is not a measure of delinquency. |
| Gross tax gap | $696 billion (tax year 2022) |
The IRS’s estimate of all tax owed but not paid on time, including tax it never detects. |
The short answer: the IRS has 13.1 million delinquent accounts open in collection, and 4.87 million taxpayers are on an IRS payment plan. Because one person can have several delinquent accounts, the number of people who owe is lower than 13.1 million, but the IRS has never published the ratio. Any other headcount you see is an estimate, not an official figure.
How Much Money Is Owed to the IRS?
As of September 30, 2025, taxpayers owed the federal government $540.3 billion in assessed, unpaid tax.
That figure comes from the IRS’s audited financial statements, and it has fallen two years in a row, from $574.0 billion in fiscal year 2023 and $566.0 billion in fiscal year 2024.
The decline came from payments on the one-time transition tax on foreign earnings, which the 2017 tax law let taxpayers pay in installments under section 965(h) of the tax code.
Those installment balances fell by $48.8 billion in fiscal year 2025.
Strip that one item out and the rest of the balance rose by about $23 billion.
The more telling number is how much of the $540.3 billion the IRS expects to see.
After setting aside compliance assessments, write-offs and a $269.9 billion allowance for amounts it considers uncollectible, the IRS books just $91.4 billion as collectible, about 17 cents on the dollar.
For the $333.2 billion in delinquent balances specifically, the IRS rates only 19.5% as collectible.
How Many Tax Accounts Are in IRS Collections?
At the end of fiscal year 2025 the IRS had 13,112,485 taxpayer delinquent accounts in its collection inventory.
A delinquent account is a single tax module: one taxpayer, one type of tax, one tax period.
A self-employed person who is three years behind on income tax and two quarters behind on payroll tax therefore has five accounts, not one.
The inventory fell to 8.4 million in fiscal year 2020, when the IRS suspended many collection notices during the pandemic, then climbed as notices restarted.
It peaked at 14.9 million at the end of fiscal year 2024.
The dollars never came back down, and the $211.5 billion owed on open accounts at the end of fiscal year 2025 is the highest in the twelve years shown here and 85% more than in fiscal year 2020.
View the data
| Fiscal year | Delinquent accounts | Balance owed | Average per account |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 12,410,000 | $130.6B | $10,525 |
| 2015 | 13,371,000 | $137.3B | $10,267 |
| 2016 | 14,005,464 | $138.2B | $9,870 |
| 2017 | 14,080,169 | $131.1B | $9,312 |
| 2018 | 13,185,584 | $128.2B | $9,721 |
| 2019 | 11,230,082 | $125.8B | $11,198 |
| 2020 | 8,426,950 | $114.3B | $13,559 |
| 2021 | 10,278,326 | $133.4B | $12,983 |
| 2022 | 9,379,515 | $120.2B | $12,818 |
| 2023 | 11,375,720 | $158.6B | $13,940 |
| 2024 | 14,901,508 | $208.4B | $13,986 |
| 2025 | 13,112,485 | $211.5B | $16,132 |
What Is the Average Tax Debt?
Dividing the balance by the number of accounts gives an average of $16,132 per delinquent account at the end of fiscal year 2025.
That is up 53% from $10,525 in fiscal year 2014.
Two cautions apply before anyone calls it the average American’s tax debt:
- It is an average per account, not per person, so someone with several delinquent years owes more than this in total.
- It leaves out penalties and interest that have built up but have not been formally assessed, so it understates what a taxpayer actually owes on the day they call the IRS.
For what it means to carry a balance well above the average, see our guides to owing the IRS more than $25,000 and more than $50,000.
How Many People Are on IRS Payment Plans?
Installment agreements are the one collection statistic the IRS reports in taxpayers rather than accounts, which makes them the best available count of people actively paying off federal tax debt.
At the end of fiscal year 2025, 4,870,810 installment agreements were in effect, up from 3,713,414 at the end of fiscal year 2022.
During the year the IRS set up 3,160,047 new agreements, 1,963,093 taxpayers paid their balances in full, and the IRS collected $17.9 billion from people on payment plans.
IRS Collection Enforcement Has Fallen Sharply
The IRS is holding more delinquent tax debt than at any point in this data while using its strongest collection tools far less often.
Compared with fiscal year 2014, notices of federal tax lien are down 60%, levies are down 83%, and property seizures are down 88%.
Staffing is a large part of the story.
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration counted 2,225 revenue officers, the IRS employees who work the most complex collection cases in person, as of January 10, 2026.
That is down 35% from 3,418 at the end of fiscal year 2024.
Total collection staff, including the phone-based Automated Collection System, fell 41% over the same period, from 11,869 to 6,990.
TIGTA also reported that the IRS ran no revenue officer compliance sweeps of high-income nonfilers in fiscal year 2025.
At the end of fiscal year 2025 there were roughly 5,150 open delinquent accounts for every revenue officer.
View the data
| Fiscal year | Liens filed | Levies | Seizures |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 535,580 | 1,995,987 | 432 |
| 2015 | 515,247 | 1,464,026 | 426 |
| 2016 | 470,602 | 869,196 | 436 |
| 2017 | 446,378 | 590,249 | 323 |
| 2018 | 410,220 | 639,025 | 275 |
| 2019 | 543,604 | 782,735 | 228 |
| 2020 | 291,081 | 396,269 | 77 |
| 2021 | 212,251 | 305,610 | 96 |
| 2022 | 157,323 | 273,286 | 89 |
| 2023 | 179,019 | 286,270 | 68 |
| 2024 | 196,996 | 313,792 | 71 |
| 2025 | 214,099 | 339,137 | 50 |
View the data
| Period | Revenue officers | Campus collection | Total collection staff |
|---|---|---|---|
| FY2023 | 2,957 | 5,363 | 8,320 |
| FY2024 | 3,418 | 8,451 | 11,869 |
| FY2025 | 2,544 | 5,299 | 7,843 |
| Jan. 2026 | 2,225 | 4,765 | 6,990 |
Offers in Compromise: Accepted Less Often Than at Any Point in This Data
An offer in compromise lets a taxpayer settle a federal tax debt for less than the full amount when paying in full isn’t realistic.
In fiscal year 2023 the IRS accepted 12,711 offers, a 42.1% acceptance rate.
In fiscal year 2025 it accepted 5,464, a 14.1% acceptance rate, even though applications rose 29% to 38,797.
The dollar value of accepted offers fell from $214.5 million to $98.1 million.
From fiscal year 2014 through fiscal year 2023 the acceptance rate never fell below 30%.
Fiscal years 2024 and 2025 are the only two years in the series below 25%.
The decline drew national attention in September 2026, including coverage from CNBC.
View the data
| Fiscal year | Received | Accepted | Acceptance rate | Amount accepted |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 68,000 | 27,000 | 39.7% | $179.4M |
| 2015 | 67,000 | 27,000 | 40.3% | $204.7M |
| 2016 | 62,937 | 26,663 | 42.4% | $225.9M |
| 2017 | 62,243 | 25,326 | 40.7% | $255.9M |
| 2018 | 59,127 | 23,929 | 40.5% | $261.3M |
| 2019 | 54,225 | 17,890 | 33.0% | $289.4M |
| 2020 | 44,809 | 14,288 | 31.9% | $158.0M |
| 2021 | 49,285 | 15,154 | 30.7% | $220.9M |
| 2022 | 36,022 | 13,165 | 36.5% | $234.3M |
| 2023 | 30,163 | 12,711 | 42.1% | $214.5M |
| 2024 | 33,591 | 7,199 | 21.4% | $163.4M |
| 2025 | 38,797 | 5,464 | 14.1% | $98.1M |
What the data can’t tell you: whether the drop reflects stricter standards, slower processing with fewer staff, or a change in who is applying. The published tables show only that the IRS is receiving more offers and accepting far fewer of them.
How Many People Owe When They File Their Taxes?
The IRS doesn’t publish delinquent accounts, liens or levies by state.
What it does publish, in its Statistics of Income Historic Table 2, is how many individual returns in each state showed a balance due when they were filed, and how much.
For tax year 2023, released in August 2026, 43,577,930 returns were filed with a balance due.
That is 27.2% of all individual returns, or more than one in four.
Those balances added up to $264.5 billion, an average of $6,069 per return.
Compared with tax year 2022, 4.6% more returns were filed owing, but the total fell 7.1% and the average fell 11.2%.
Read this one carefully: a balance due at filing is not tax debt. Most of these balances are paid with the return. The figure measures how often, and by how much, filers in a state under-withhold or underpay estimated tax during the year. Pages that present it as “average tax debt by state” are mislabeling it.
North Dakota filers owed the most on average, $8,082 per return filed with a balance due.
Six of the ten states with the highest averages don’t tax wage income: South Dakota, Florida, Wyoming, Nevada, Washington and Texas.
California had the highest share of returns filed owing, 31.8%, and West Virginia the lowest, 20.0%.
California’s average fell 29.5% from the year before, to $7,066.
Much of that is likely timing: after the early 2023 winter storms, the IRS let taxpayers in most California counties skip their fourth-quarter 2022 estimated payment and pay it with their 2022 return instead (IRS announcement CA-2023-02), which pushed tax year 2022 balances up.
All 50 states and the District of Columbia, tax year 2023. Select a column heading to sort.
| State | Returns owing | % owing | Average due | Change vs. 2022 | Total due |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | 546,780 | 25.5% | $5,441 | −6.7% | $2.98B |
| Alaska | 101,810 | 29.3% | $5,236 | −0.1% | $0.53B |
| Arizona | 973,650 | 28.7% | $5,790 | −6.3% | $5.64B |
| Arkansas | 324,260 | 25.1% | $5,195 | −8.5% | $1.68B |
| California | 5,876,280 | 31.8% | $7,066 | −29.5% | $41.52B |
| Colorado | 958,180 | 31.0% | $6,087 | −8.7% | $5.83B |
| Connecticut | 516,110 | 28.3% | $6,993 | −6.6% | $3.61B |
| Delaware | 139,820 | 27.6% | $4,962 | −4.9% | $0.69B |
| District of Columbia | 109,450 | 31.4% | $6,153 | −8.3% | $0.67B |
| Florida | 3,058,990 | 27.3% | $7,247 | −11.4% | $22.17B |
| Georgia | 1,336,890 | 27.4% | $5,793 | −8.8% | $7.74B |
| Hawaii | 191,500 | 27.5% | $4,989 | −9.4% | $0.96B |
| Idaho | 255,190 | 28.8% | $5,959 | −13.7% | $1.52B |
| Illinois | 1,583,210 | 26.0% | $5,634 | −5.2% | $8.92B |
| Indiana | 712,990 | 22.0% | $5,022 | −2.1% | $3.58B |
| Iowa | 397,560 | 26.8% | $5,426 | +7.3% | $2.16B |
| Kansas | 361,570 | 26.5% | $5,467 | −4.2% | $1.98B |
| Kentucky | 459,410 | 23.2% | $4,746 | −1.0% | $2.18B |
| Louisiana | 436,760 | 22.6% | $5,290 | −9.8% | $2.31B |
| Maine | 191,700 | 26.9% | $5,661 | +3.9% | $1.09B |
| Maryland | 930,470 | 30.0% | $5,232 | +0.3% | $4.87B |
| Massachusetts | 1,057,490 | 29.4% | $6,902 | −7.4% | $7.30B |
| Michigan | 1,136,270 | 23.3% | $4,979 | +4.2% | $5.66B |
| Minnesota | 855,860 | 29.5% | $5,184 | −4.5% | $4.44B |
| Mississippi | 283,020 | 23.0% | $5,305 | −2.6% | $1.50B |
| Missouri | 728,150 | 25.4% | $5,152 | −3.9% | $3.75B |
| Montana | 157,870 | 28.5% | $6,198 | −10.4% | $0.98B |
| Nebraska | 263,560 | 27.7% | $6,013 | −9.7% | $1.58B |
| Nevada | 404,230 | 25.8% | $7,074 | −12.4% | $2.86B |
| New Hampshire | 198,720 | 27.1% | $6,634 | −6.4% | $1.32B |
| New Jersey | 1,368,690 | 29.4% | $6,529 | −4.2% | $8.94B |
| New Mexico | 242,270 | 24.7% | $4,670 | −4.8% | $1.13B |
| New York | 2,770,530 | 28.3% | $5,967 | −4.3% | $16.53B |
| North Carolina | 1,380,300 | 28.0% | $5,314 | −7.8% | $7.34B |
| North Dakota | 107,920 | 29.1% | $8,082 | −9.4% | $0.87B |
| Ohio | 1,377,050 | 24.2% | $4,712 | −2.6% | $6.49B |
| Oklahoma | 429,320 | 25.2% | $5,267 | −6.5% | $2.26B |
| Oregon | 628,390 | 30.4% | $5,137 | −7.9% | $3.23B |
| Pennsylvania | 1,471,720 | 23.4% | $5,597 | −4.9% | $8.24B |
| Rhode Island | 148,750 | 26.1% | $5,152 | −2.4% | $0.77B |
| South Carolina | 720,690 | 29.0% | $5,321 | −4.1% | $3.83B |
| South Dakota | 122,800 | 27.6% | $7,562 | −4.9% | $0.93B |
| Tennessee | 831,320 | 25.5% | $6,476 | −4.1% | $5.38B |
| Texas | 3,358,420 | 24.6% | $6,678 | −11.5% | $22.43B |
| Utah | 442,110 | 28.7% | $6,113 | −3.8% | $2.70B |
| Vermont | 87,180 | 26.0% | $5,222 | −1.1% | $0.46B |
| Virginia | 1,236,980 | 29.7% | $5,578 | +0.2% | $6.90B |
| Washington | 1,105,410 | 29.2% | $6,919 | −5.4% | $7.65B |
| West Virginia | 155,140 | 20.0% | $4,527 | +7.0% | $0.70B |
| Wisconsin | 790,900 | 26.9% | $4,644 | −1.7% | $3.67B |
| Wyoming | 74,720 | 26.5% | $7,203 | −15.9% | $0.54B |
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Call 866-8000-TAXWhat Is the Tax Gap?
The tax gap is the IRS’s estimate of the difference between the tax people legally owe and the tax they pay on time.
For tax year 2022, the most recent projection, the IRS puts the gross tax gap at $696 billion and the net tax gap, after late payments and enforcement, at $606 billion.
That works out to a voluntary compliance rate of 85.0%.
Only one piece of the gap describes people who owe money they already acknowledge.
The underpayment gap, $94 billion, is tax reported correctly on a timely return that simply wasn’t paid.
The other $602 billion is tax that was underreported or never reported because no return was filed.
Methodology and Definitions
Every figure on this page comes from a primary U.S. government source: the IRS Data Book, the IRS’s audited financial statements, IRS Statistics of Income, IRS tax gap projections and TIGTA audit reports.
Nothing is taken from surveys, private datasets or other statistics roundups.
Where we calculated a figure rather than quoting one, the calculation is described below.
Definitions
- Unpaid assessment. Tax the IRS has formally assessed that remains unpaid, including amounts written off as uncollectible, which remain legally enforceable.
- Taxpayer delinquent account. An open collection account for one taxpayer, one type of tax and one tax period.
- Compliance assessment. An assessment that neither the taxpayer nor a court has agreed to. It is legally enforceable but is not counted as a receivable under federal accounting standards.
- Write-off. An unpaid assessment the IRS does not expect to collect, which remains a legal claim of the United States.
- Balance due at filing. The amount shown as owed on an individual return when it is filed, published by state as SOI fields N11901 (returns) and A11901 (amount).
- Gross and net tax gap. Gross is all tax not paid voluntarily and on time. Net subtracts what is later collected through late payments and enforcement.
Calculations
- Average per delinquent account: balance of assessed tax, penalties and interest divided by accounts in ending inventory.
- Accounts per revenue officer: delinquent accounts at the end of fiscal year 2025 divided by TIGTA’s count of 2,544 revenue officers at the same point.
- Offer acceptance rate: offers accepted divided by offers received in the same fiscal year.
- Share of returns owing: returns with a balance due at filing divided by all individual returns, by state.
Fiscal Years, Tax Years and Rounding
IRS fiscal year 2025 ran from October 1, 2024, to September 30, 2025.
Data Book, financial statement and TIGTA figures are by fiscal year, while Statistics of Income figures are by tax year.
State totals exclude “other areas” and Puerto Rico, so they add up to slightly less than the U.S. total.
FY2014 and FY2015 account and offer counts are published rounded to the nearest thousand.
What This Page Does Not Claim
- A count of unique individuals who owe the IRS, because no official figure exists.
- Delinquent accounts, liens or levies by state, because the IRS does not publish them and its internal collection reports are organized by area office rather than by state.
- How many people have had a passport certified for seriously delinquent tax debt, because the IRS publishes the threshold ($66,000 for 2026) but not the count.
Sources
- Internal Revenue Service, Publication 5456: FY2025 Agency Financial Report, Required Supplementary Information and Management’s Discussion and Analysis (unpaid assessments, receivables and collectability). irs.gov. Prior years from the FY2024 Agency Financial Report. Audited by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, GAO-26-107977 (January 20, 2026).
- Internal Revenue Service, IRS Data Book, Delinquent Collection Activities: Table 4-1 (FY2025), Table 27, Table 25 and Table 16 (earlier editions). irs.gov.
- Internal Revenue Service, IRS Data Book FY2025, Table 6-3, Personnel Summary. irs.gov.
- Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, Trends in Compliance Activities Through Fiscal Year 2025, Report No. 2026-3S0-045, August 26, 2026, Figure 13 and Field Collection discussion. oversight.gov.
- Internal Revenue Service, Statistics of Income, Historic Table 2: Individual Income Tax Returns by State, tax years 2023 and 2022. irs.gov.
- Internal Revenue Service, Publication 5869: Tax Gap Projections for Tax Year 2022 (Rev. 10-2024). irs.gov.
- Internal Revenue Service, Revocation or denial of passport in cases of certain unpaid taxes. irs.gov.
- Internal Revenue Service, announcement CA-2023-02, tax relief for California winter storm victims. irs.gov.
How to Cite This Page
Journalists, researchers and educators may republish any chart, table or figure on this page without asking.
Please credit Choice Tax Relief and link to this page so readers can reach the sources and methodology.
Allec, Logan. “How Many Americans Owe the IRS? Tax Debt Statistics for 2026.” Choice Tax Relief, updated September 25, 2026. https://choicetaxrelief.com/tax-statistics/tax-debt-statistics/Need a figure cut a different way, the underlying spreadsheet, or a CPA to interview?
Email Logan Allec, CPA at [email protected].
We update this page twice a year: each June, when the IRS releases its annual Data Book, and each fall, when Statistics of Income publishes the next tax year of state data.
Frequently Asked Questions About Tax Debt in America
How many Americans owe back taxes to the IRS?
The IRS doesn’t publish a count of individuals. At the end of fiscal year 2025 it had 13,112,485 delinquent accounts in collection, and 4,870,810 taxpayers were on an installment agreement. Because one person can have several delinquent accounts, the number of people who owe is lower than 13.1 million.
How much money is owed to the IRS?
Taxpayers owed $540.3 billion in assessed, unpaid federal tax as of September 30, 2025, according to the IRS’s audited financial statements. The IRS expects to collect about $91.4 billion of it.
What is the average tax debt owed to the IRS?
The average balance on a delinquent IRS account was $16,132 at the end of fiscal year 2025. That is per account, not per person, and it excludes penalties and interest that have not yet been assessed.
What percentage of people owe taxes when they file?
For tax year 2023, 27.2% of individual returns, 43.6 million of them, were filed with a balance due. Most of those balances are paid with the return.
Which state owes the IRS the most?
California filers owed the most in total at filing time for tax year 2023, $41.5 billion. North Dakota filers owed the most on average, $8,082 per return filed with a balance due.
How many offers in compromise does the IRS accept?
The IRS accepted 5,464 of the 38,797 offers it received in fiscal year 2025, an acceptance rate of about 14%. Two years earlier the rate was 42%.
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Author:
Logan Allec, CPA, Founder and Owner
Logan Allec has been serving taxpayers as a CPA for over 14 years. After leaving his role at a "Big 4" firm, he started Choice Tax Relief to help everyday Americans who have found themselves behind on their taxes. He also educates thousands of people daily about tax relief on his YouTube channel. In addition to his CPA license, Logan also has a Master's Degree in Taxation from the University of Southern California (USC). He lives with his wife and children in the Los Angeles area. Learn more about Logan here.
