The American Community Survey (ACS) is an ongoing survey that provides data every year—giving communities the current information they need to make important decisions. The ACS covers a broad range of topics about social, economic, housing, and demographic characteristics of the U.S. population.
The ACS 1-year estimates are available for the nation, all states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, all congressional districts and metropolitan statistical areas, and all counties and places (i.e., towns or cities) with populations of 65,000 or more.
To create an API call, you must enter a specific URL into the address bar of a web browser. The call will vary depending on the following factors:
Year of data release
Dataset (ACS 1-year or 5-year)
Table ID
Geography level
Please review the example API calls for each of the table types listed below and use those examples to build your API calls. API calls are also available for tables found in data.census.gov by selecting the API function in the tool bar. Visit the API Resources page for tutorial videos, workshops and other tools.
The API is one of several ways to access ACS data. Visit the ACS Data page to find all the ways to access ACS data.
Variables, and the values they represent, may change over time. Use this 2022 1YR API Changes document as a guide for which variables have changed from the prior year for 2022 ACS 1-Year Detailed Tables, Data Profiles and Subject Tables. See below for a description of each change type.
For table changes, check the ACS product changes webpage for source table changes.
In September 2016, ACS released annotation variables that return character representations of each estimate. Many annotations return as null. However, if an annotation variable returns a value, it provides important information about the estimate or margin of error. For example, if an estimate variable (variable ending in “E”) returns “-888888888”, the annotation variable will return “(X)”. Looking at the Notes on ACS Estimate and Annotation Values, this means the estimate is not applicable or not available. For a complete list of return values and their annotations, see: