Donor States 2026

Return on Tax Dollars

$0.50

$1.50

$2.50

$3.50

State	Return on Tax Dollars 2024↑	Per Capita Balance 2023	Per Capita Balance without Covid 2023
Delaware	$0.46	$5,360	$4,737
New Jersey	$0.51	$2,011	$2,757
Washington	$0.59	$7	$728
Massachusetts	$0.60	$967	$1,605
Nebraska	$0.65	$2,351	$1,749
New York	$0.65	$674	$372
Ohio	$0.66	$5,075	$4,490
Missouri	$0.70	$7,150	$6,595
Minnesota	$0.71	$807	$237
California	$0.73	$342	$428
Texas	$0.75	$2,603	$2,037
Illinois	$0.76	$818	$184
Rhode Island	$0.76	$4,767	$3,922
Colorado	$0.78	$1,051	$463
Georgia	$0.78	$3,951	$3,345
Florida	$0.79	$2,574	$1,978
Utah	$0.79	$1,067	$493
Tennessee	$0.81	$4,589	$4,079
Arkansas	$0.85	$7,340	$6,738
Wisconsin	$0.85	$2,887	$2,369
Nevada	$0.88	$2,120	$1,486
North Carolina	$0.88	$4,808	$4,293
Kansas	$0.89	$3,900	$3,391
New Hampshire	$0.90	$23	$535
Wyoming	$0.91	$3,218	$2,572
Indiana	$0.92	$4,415	$3,868
Pennsylvania	$0.92	$4,826	$4,197
North Dakota	$0.96	$2,787	$2,077
Iowa	$0.97	$3,481	$2,950
South Dakota	$0.97	$3,626	$3,107
Michigan	$0.99	$4,584	$4,028
Connecticut	$1.09	$2,937	$2,261
Idaho	$1.15	$4,191	$3,684
Oregon	$1.21	$4,389	$3,716
Oklahoma	$1.30	$8,097	$7,508
Louisiana	$1.33	$8,784	$7,964
Montana	$1.43	$4,929	$4,347
Vermont	$1.50	$5,558	$4,686
South Carolina	$1.60	$7,926	$7,387
Arizona	$1.62	$7,195	$6,471
Kentucky	$1.68	$10,813	$10,149
District of Columbia	$1.71
Maine	$1.78	$9,144	$8,525
Maryland	$1.79	$13,037	$12,469
Alabama	$1.90	$10,268	$9,728
Virginia	$1.91	$16,650	$16,096
Hawaii	$1.94	$10,291	$9,660
Alaska	$2.65	$14,760	$12,983
Mississippi	$2.66	$11,714	$11,028
West Virginia	$2.91	$12,130	$11,522
New Mexico	$3.42	$16,178	$15,475

States with a Return on Tax Dollars of less than $1.00 (such as California at $0.73) pay more to the government than they receive and are considered donor states.
Return on Tax Dollars indicates the amount of federal funding the state receives in return for each $1.00 in taxes the state sends to the government.
Overall Federal Dependency Score is computed by combining the scores for Return on Tax Dollars and the Percent (%) of State Revenue from Federal Funds and converting the result to a 100-point scale.
Balance of Payments is the difference between the amount of funding a state receives from the federal government and the amount that state pays to the federal government (typically in the form of taxes). States with a negative balance pay more in taxes than they receive in federal government funding and are considered donor states.
During 2020-2021, the need for additional federal funding during the COVID-19 pandemic temporarily turned many donor states into recipient states. This impact continues to a lesser extent in the data for 2022, the most recent available as of April 2025.

Each state collects a myriad of taxes from its residents, but the ones residents of all states pay are federal income taxes. It makes sense then that states with more residents, specifically more high earners, will pay more to the collective in income taxes than they take, and because of this, we have “donor states.”

These states are the ones who give more federal funds than they receive per capita (or per person). The Tax Foundation says that “84 percent of federal individual income taxes—which account for over 40 percent of federal revenue—are paid by those in the top 25 percent of the income distribution. The majority of these taxpayers live in wealthy, urban, politically “blue” areas like New York, California, and Massachusetts.”

Before the pandemic, there were eight of these donor states, but after? There are none. To account for this change, we included both the 2019 and the 2020 Federal Fiscal Year data sets with each state’s total receipts, expenditures, and balance of payments.

In this context, receipts are what the state government receives in federal funding, expenditures are what the state contributes in income taxes, and the balance of payment is the expenditures minus the receipts. Donor states have a negative balance of payments. It should be noted that the data used is from two years previous because these are very comprehensive figures that take a long time to compile, analyze, and interpret.

Donor States

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, there were eight U.S. states considered donor states. The main reason that these states see a negative balance is that those states have some of the highest household incomes in the country, paying more federal taxes. This, however, does not guarantee that they would receive more federal funding for things such as Medicaid and education.

In 2019, New York was the largest donor state in the U.S., with a negative balance of payments at $22,798,000,000. For every dollar New York gave the federal government, its residents were only receiving $0.91 back. As we mentioned, this discrepancy is due to the sheer volume of high earners within the state. Additionally, due to the cost of living in New York City, most of its residents earn over 14% more than the average American.

Seven other states are donor states:

New Jersey (-$10,334,000,000)
Massachusetts (-$9,919,000,000)
California (-$6,653,000,000)
Connecticut ($5,754,000,000)
Minnesota (-$1,896,000,000)
Colorado ($1,374,000,000)
Utah (-$416,000,000)

States Receiving The Most Funding

Virginia is at the opposite end of the spectrum, with the highest positive balance of payments. Virginia’s balance of payments is $111,785,000,000, and residents receive $2.24 for every dollar sent to the federal government. One of the reasons that Virginia receives so much is the proximity to the District of Columbia, where there is a lot of federal spending to support federal projects, politicians, and military efforts.

Kentucky follows with $63,229,000,000 and the highest expenditure per dollar of receipts at $2.89.

It is worth noting that just because these states are receiving funding does not mean that that money is being spent on residents. You can find out who is spending the most per dollar received by rearranging the data based on “Expenditures per Dollar of Receipts.”

The ten states with the largest positive balance of payments (the biggest takers) are:

Virginia ($111,785,000,000)
Kentucky ($63,229,000,000)
Florida ($50,999,000,000)
Maryland ($49,942,000,000)
Ohio ($42,004,000,000)
Pennsylvania ($41,516,000,000)
North Carolina ($35,437,000,000)
Alabama ($33,033,000,000)
Arizona ($30,907,000,000)
South Carolina ($28,209,000,000)

Post-Pandemic Donor States

Due to the severity and length of the pandemic, the 2020 FFY data does not reflect any existence of donor states. This is not likely to remain the case. As economies recover and government funding changes shape, we will see how this proceeds.

Upon analyzing the data for 2020, you can see a pattern of states with more residents (and therefore a higher number of COVID-19 cases) being bigger takers and states that have a smaller population, fewer cases, or less of a cultural focus on the pandemic being the ones that received less federal funding.

The states with the least balance of payments during the federal fiscal year of 2020 include