Working toward our goal of counting everyone in the census, including hard-to-count and historically undercounted populations, requires a wide variety of interconnected activities. The U.S. Census Bureau remains committed to looking for better ways to reach and count these populations in the 2030 Census and beyond.

As we prepare for the 2030 Census, we’re working to improve a number of interconnected activities, including how we reach out to encourage people to respond; the different ways people can respond; and how we collect and process data. These activities work together toward our goal of getting a complete and accurate count in the 2030 Census.

Toward this end, we’ve been actively engaged in dozens of research projects built on lessons learned from the 2020 Census, informed and affirmed by public feedback, and supplemented by ongoing small-scale testing. These efforts are paving the way to potential enhancements to the 2030 Census.

In two years, we’re conducting the 2026 Census Test to evaluate how well the enhancements we’ve researched and developed perform. It is the first of two major on-the-ground tests we plan in preparation for the 2030 Census.

Today, I’m excited to share our priorities for the 2026 Census Test and what we hope to learn. It’s an important step in preparing us to count everyone in 2030.

I’d like to begin by recapping our testing strategy. Our focus this decade is on enhancing, rather than re-envisioning, the 2020 Census design to achieve a complete and accurate count. 

We’re seeking to build on the successes and address the limitations of the 2020 Census. For example, as I detail below, we’re streamlining how we gather data to make the experience as easy as possible for the public and to help us conduct the census more efficiently. And we’re exploring new and improved ways to leverage community engagement and build trust to increase participation in hard-to-count and historically undercounted populations.

Our testing strategy for the 2030 Census has two main components:

• Ongoing small-scale testing through 2029.
• Two field tests in 2026 and 2028.

These components are designed to provide the information we need to develop, adjust and finalize our plans for conducting the 2030 Census. 

As our first major field effort, the 2026 Census Test will help us assess enhanced processes and methods we’re considering implementing for the 2030 Census. To do this, we established clear criteria for determining which operational changes and innovations to test. They must:

• Support the goal of achieving a complete and accurate count.
• Include changes or innovations that need to be demonstrated as viable in the real world.
• Be feasible to test based on the available budget, systems and other resources.

Simply put, our objective is to verify if we can and should continue pursuing the key enhancements and innovations identified in our early research efforts.

Through the 2026 Census Test, we will evaluate proposed changes and innovations in six operational areas to improve feasibility and effectiveness. All of these will include aspects that directly or indirectly help us enumerate hard-to-count and historically undercounted populations. The goal is to improve these operational areas to help us achieve a complete and accurate count in the 2030 Census.

Here are highlights of what is being tested in each operational area:

• Self-Response. We will test ways to increase the public’s use of our online questionnaire to respond. Households responding on their own help to maximize data quality and reduce costs. We’re focused on innovations that will make it even easier to respond, including innovations in how we contact people to encourage response and improvements to the online questionnaire. For example, we’re changing our mailed materials to better communicate the importance of responding to the census and help facilitate access to the online questionnaire. We also redesigned portions of the online questionnaire to make it faster and easier for people to complete, and we’ll test an idea suggested by stakeholders and the public to provide paper questionnaires upon request. Both the paper and online questionnaire will be available in multiple languages. These efforts will help us better reach populations that are difficult to contact or persuade to respond.
• In-Field Enumeration. We will test a consolidated and improved approach to collecting data in person from households. We’re integrating three 2020 Census operations that collected data from housing units: Nonresponse Followup (which followed up with households that didn’t respond on their own), and Update Leave and Update Enumerate (which both helped count households in areas difficult to reach by mail or with low internet connectivity). The 2026 Test will allow census takers to make basic changes to the address list by linking duplicate addresses and identifying addresses that should be added or deleted. We are also eager to try out new technologies to encourage response like providing a Quick Response (QR) code during an interview to allow the public to complete the census alone or guided by a census taker. Each of these new and enhanced features directly or indirectly involve improving our ability to enumerate historically undercounted populations.
• Group Quarters Enumeration. We will explore new ways of counting people who live in group quarters (such as college/university student housing, nursing/skilled nursing facilities, correctional facilities and military barracks) – a population we faced challenges counting during the 2020 Census. This will include new outreach and invitation strategies and using a new survey tool for collecting data from residents of the group quarters. Residents of some noninstitutional group quarters (like college students) will have the opportunity to self-respond through a specially designed online option.
• Communications, Partnerships, and Engagement. We will test technology to identify key locations where we can hold community events designed to raise awareness about and participation in the census. We are also trying out innovative ways of reaching non-English speaking households. Our Mobile Questionnaire Assistance events will support Census Bureau staff, local partnership organizations and community leaders in increasing response, particularly among hard-to-count and historically undercounted populations. We are committed to actively and consistently engaging with stakeholders from diverse backgrounds and at all community levels using culturally relevant approaches. As we consider how to improve support for local outreach, we'll test the convening of community leaders and stakeholders to gain insight into critical needs and creative solutions. Community engagement and partnership are important aspects of conducting a census.
• Cross Operational Support and Infrastructure. Successful operational execution of the 2030 Census requires a robust and integrated infrastructure. We will test the effectiveness of virtual infrastructure, which includes hiring, training, mailing equipment to staff and providing IT support. We will also begin building and testing our infrastructure for administrative data. We hope these administrative data will help us determine the feasibility of making highly tailored decisions like how and when to contact a household or area by mail or how many visits to make to a nonresponding housing unit. We will also research the feasibility of building on and expanding our successful use of high-quality administrative data for enumerating households that don't otherwise respond.
• Near Real Time Response Processing. We will also test our plans to implement near real-time processing of response data, with a goal of improving data collection and analytics. Streamlining data processing helps us monitor and identify issues with the data or with response processing in near real time. For example, this means we can investigate response patterns that don’t fit what we might reasonably expect and address them during operations rather than with patches or reruns on the back end. It should improve overall data quality.

By improving these operational areas, we hope to overcome barriers to participation and work toward the goal of counting everyone living in the United States in the census. I encourage you to learn more about what we’re testing in each operational area by reviewing the recording of and other materials from our April 30 webinar. 

The next question many will ask is, “Where are you conducting the 2026 Census Test”?

The Census Bureau will use a rigorous and scientific process to choose the test sites.

The scope of the test – meaning the operations included in it – will lead to the criteria the Census Bureau uses to select the sites, including the ability to test the six operational areas outlined in this blog.

We are also carefully considering representation of hard-to-count and historically undercounted populations, geographic factors and cost efficiency to ensure the sites support the test objectives and the test has robust and meaningful outcomes.

The Census Bureau is now in the process of finalizing the list of optimal sites.

The next step will be to publicly announce the sites selected for the test. This summer, we plan to host another webinar to discuss those sites and the criteria and process we used to select them. We look forward to sharing these developments with you!

We hope you will stay tuned for updates on the 2026 Census Test. Until then, you can learn more about our preparations for the next census on our 2030 Census webpage. You can also subscribe to receive 2030 Census email updates and follow us on social media.