# 2030 Census The twenty-fifth decennial enumeration, taken as of April 1, 2030. It will fix House apportionment and the redistricting base for the 2032–2040 elections. It is also being designed under more direct political pressure than the 2020 count, and with fewer of the institutional buffers that absorbed pressure last time. ## The dates that actually bind Two dates come before the count, and both are in statute. Under [[Title 13]] § 141(f), the Secretary of Commerce must report the proposed **subjects** to Congress by **April 1, 2027** and the proposed **question wording** by **April 1, 2028**. Both are reports, not requests: Congress is told, not asked ([[How a Census Question Is Added or Removed]]). After Census Day, the § 141(b) apportionment count is due to the President by **December 31, 2030**, and the [[Public Law 94-171]] redistricting files are due to the states by **April 1, 2031**. Neither deadline carries a remedy. In 2020 both were missed by months with no consequence ([[Census Data Products Tree]], [[2020 Census]]). ## How the design has been bent, 2025–2026 None of these moves needed a statute. Each one used a tool the executive already held: a social-media directive, a committee charter, a test design, a departmental order, a proposed rule. - **June 10, 2025: the advisers go.** Commerce terminated the 2030 Census Advisory Committee, the Census Scientific Advisory Committee and the National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic, and Other Populations, citing [[Executive Order 14217]]. These were the three bodies through which outside experts reached design decisions on the record. - **August 7, 2025: the instruction.** Trump posted that he had told Commerce to begin work "immediately" on a "new and highly accurate" census, and that people in the country illegally "WILL NOT BE COUNTED IN THE CENSUS." No statute provides for a mid-decade redo of the apportionment count. The practical effect was to set the direction for 2030. - **February 2026: the rehearsal shrinks.** The 2026 Census Test, the main field rehearsal of the decade, was cut from six sites to two: Huntsville, Alabama and Spartanburg, South Carolina. Self-response became English-only and online-only, the group-quarters operation was dropped, and the [[American Community Survey]] questionnaire replaced the decennial form. That questionnaire carries a citizenship question. About 155,000 housing units were sampled, and fieldwork ran through August 31, 2026. - **June 4, 2026: the audit.** GAO reported that 10 of the test's 19 planned operational activities had been eliminated or reduced. It warned that the Bureau risks finalizing the 2030 design before it has evidence on whether its features work. Commerce agreed with both recommendations: test what was cut, and assess the decennial workforce. - **June 4, 2026: the disclosure order.** [[Disclosure Avoidance for Statistical Products]] (DAO 216-26) barred noise infusion, the family of methods behind the 2020 [[Differential Privacy]] system. The 2030 privacy design has to be rebuilt from a different toolkit. - **September 10, 2026: the rule.** The [[2030 Census Residence Rule]] would count only citizens and lawful permanent residents for apportionment, bar race and ethnicity questions from the form, and invite comment on a legal-status question. Comments close October 13, 2026. ## Who is running it No one confirmed. The Director's seat has been empty since February 2025. [[George M. Cook]], a Commerce deputy under secretary rather than a Bureau official, has performed the duties since September 19, 2025. The 2022–2026 term expires December 31, 2026 ([[Census Bureau Org Chart]]). Title 13 builds the Bureau's protections around one Senate-confirmed seat, and every decision above was made with that seat vacant. ## The two open questions 1. **Who is asked.** Whether an immigration-status question reaches the form. See [[Census Citizenship Question]]. 2. **Who counts.** Whether anyone is excluded from the apportionment base. The [[Fourteenth Amendment]] apportions by "the whole number of persons in each State." The Residence Rule does not argue with that text. It redefines "usual residence" so that some persons are no longer residents at all. See [[How the Census Apportions Congress]] and [[Missouri v. Department of Commerce]], the parallel suit Missouri dropped on September 18, 2026 after this rule appeared. The seat math makes the stakes concrete. The House is capped at 435 by the [[Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929]], so the base is zero-sum: every person dropped from one state's count moves fractional seat priority to another. In 2020 the last seat turned on 89 people. ## See also - [[Census]] — the cluster hub - [[How the Census Is Actually Counted]] · [[How the Census Apportions Congress]] · [[How a Census Question Is Added or Removed]] - [[Census Bureau]] · [[Census Bureau Org Chart]] · [[Federal Statistical System Tree]] - [[2020 Census]] · [[Census Undercount]] · [[Census Citizenship Question]] · [[2030 Census Residence Rule]] - [[American Community Survey]] · [[Title 13]] · [[Howard Lutnick]]