State profileFiscal year 2025Federal awards
How much federal money does Puerto Rico get?
Puerto Rico received $28.9 billion in federal money in FY2025, or $9,086 per person.In fiscal year 2025 (October 2024 to September 2025), federal agencies obligated $28.9 billion in contracts, grants, loans and direct payments with a place of performance in Puerto Rico, or $9,086 per resident.
What the money is
That is down 11.4% from FY2024 ($32.6 billion). Compared with FY2019, the last year before pandemic relief, it is up 17.9%. The largest share came as direct payments ($18.6 billion, 64.1% of the total). The agency obligating the most was the Social Security Administration with $12.5 billion, and the biggest single program was Social Security Retirement Insurance (Assistance Listing 96.002) at $8.9 billion.
For FY2026, which ended on 30 September 2026, $29.2 billion has been reported so far. That figure will rise as late reports arrive, so the comparisons on this page use FY2025, the latest complete year.
These are award obligations recorded on USAspending.gov, the official source for federal award data. They include Social Security and other direct payments, Medicaid and other grants to the state, and federal contracts performed there. They do not include federal salaries, interest on the debt, or tax refunds.
The other direction: the IRS collected $5.5 billion in federal taxes in Puerto Rico in FY2025 (how much federal tax Puerto Rico pays).
Medicare is left out. USAspending records Medicare benefit payments (Parts A, B and D) at the location of the contractor that processes the claims, not where patients live, so they would distort this state. In FY2025, $9.5 billion of Medicare payments was recorded in this state; it is not in the figures on this page.
Federal money to Puerto Rico by year
Puerto Rico: $29B in FY2025, up 18% on FY2019
Federal award obligations by fiscal year and type, FY2018–FY2026, nominal dollars. FY26* is preliminary and still filling in.
- Insurance and other
- Loans (subsidy cost)
- Direct payments
- Grants
- Contracts
View every year as a table
| Fiscal year | Contracts | Grants | Direct payments | Loans | Insurance and other | Total | Per resident |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY2018 | $4.6B | $12.3B | $14.8B | $159.2M | $688.1M | $32.5B | – |
| FY2019 | $1.1B | $8.9B | $13.9B | -$17.7M | $609.7M | $24.5B | – |
| FY2020 | $1.1B | $22.3B | $16.5B | $2.0B | $563.5M | $42.5B | $12,952 |
| FY2021 | $711.5M | $35.0B | $20.7B | $1.0B | $669.9M | $58.1B | $17,807 |
| FY2022 | $1.5B | $12.6B | $15.4B | $115.5M | $682.8M | $30.3B | $9,409 |
| FY2023 | $2.0B | $12.2B | $17.0B | -$11.4M | $240.5M | $31.4B | $9,801 |
| FY2024 | $1.5B | $13.6B | $17.4B | $155.2M | $28.8M | $32.6B | $10,194 |
| FY2025 | $919.9M | $9.4B | $18.6B | -$8.7M | $26.3M | $28.9B | $9,086 |
| FY2026* | $2.1B | $9.2B | $17.9B | -$11.5M | $30.0M | $29.2B | – |
Source: USAspending.gov (U.S. Treasury).
Who pays and for what, FY2025
The agencies that obligated the most to Puerto Rico, and the largest federal programs. Programs are federal Assistance Listings (formerly CFDA numbers); contracts have no listing number, so they do not appear there.
Top awarding agencies
| Agency | FY2025 | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Social Security Administration | $12.5 billion | 43.4% |
| Department of Health and Human Services | $4.4 billion | 15.1% |
| Department of Agriculture | $3.3 billion | 11.4% |
| Department of Veterans Affairs | $1.7 billion | 5.8% |
| Department of Education | $1.7 billion | 5.8% |
| Department of Homeland Security | $1.7 billion | 5.7% |
| Department of Housing and Urban Development | $1.2 billion | 4.0% |
| Department of Defense | $620.4 million | 2.1% |
| Department of Energy | $575.3 million | 2.0% |
| Department of Transportation | $513.2 million | 1.8% |
Top programs
| Program | FY2025 | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Social Security Retirement Insurance Assistance Listing 96.002 | $8.9 billion | 30.6% |
| Grants to States for Medicaid Assistance Listing 93.778 | $3.4 billion | 11.6% |
| Nutrition Assistance For Puerto Rico Assistance Listing 10.566 | $2.9 billion | 10.1% |
| Social Security Disability Insurance Assistance Listing 96.001 | $2.4 billion | 8.4% |
| Disaster Grants - Public Assistance (Presidentially Declared Disasters) Assistance Listing 97.036 | $1.4 billion | 5.0% |
| Veterans Compensation for Service-Connected Disability Assistance Listing 64.109 | $1.3 billion | 4.7% |
| Social Security Survivors Insurance Assistance Listing 96.004 | $1.3 billion | 4.3% |
| Federal Pell Grant Program Assistance Listing 84.063 | $892.6 million | 3.1% |
| Grid Infrastructure Deployment and Resilience Assistance Listing 81.254 | $456.2 million | 1.6% |
| Title I Grants to Local Educational Agencies Assistance Listing 84.010 | $426.3 million | 1.5% |
Where the money goes inside Puerto Rico
Cities and universities with their own pages, by FY2025 federal awards.
Universities and colleges in Puerto Rico
- University of Puerto Rico (Mayaguez)$64M
- University of Puerto Rico (San Juan)$60M
- Sistema Universitario Ana G Mendez$54M
- University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences Campus$38M
- Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico$33M
- Sistema Universitario Ana G. Mendez, Incorporado (San Juan)$30M
- Universidad del Sagrado Corazon$29M
- Sistema Universitario Ana G. Mendez, Incorporado (Carolina)$26M
Questions and answers
- How much federal money did Puerto Rico get in 2025?
- In fiscal year 2025, federal agencies obligated $28.9 billion in awards with a place of performance in Puerto Rico, according to USAspending.gov.
- How much federal money does Puerto Rico get per person?
- About $9,086 per resident in FY2025, using the Census Bureau's July 2025 population estimate of 3,184,835.
- Which federal agency spends the most in Puerto Rico?
- The Social Security Administration, with $12.5 billion in FY2025 (43.4% of the total).
- What is the largest federal program in Puerto Rico?
- Social Security Retirement Insurance (Assistance Listing 96.002), with $8.9 billion obligated in FY2025.
- Has federal spending in Puerto Rico gone up?
- Yes. FY2025 obligations of $28.9 billion compare with $24.5 billion in FY2019, a change of 17.9%.
Sources and notes
- USAspending.gov (U.S. Department of the Treasury), API endpoints spending_over_time and spending_by_category, filtered by place of performance state = PR, fiscal years 2018–2026. Amounts are obligations in nominal dollars. Data retrieved 2026-10-04. Public domain.
- U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 population estimates (July 1 of each year). Per-resident figures use the estimate for the July inside the fiscal year.
- How the figures are built, and what they leave out: sources and methods.