Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Census Bureau changed the 2020 ACS release. Instead of providing the standard 1-year data products, the Census Bureau released 2020 ACS 1-year experimental estimates. There is no 2020 ACS 1-year Summary File.

Find 2018-Present Table-Based Format.

2016-2020 ACS 5-year Estimates

5-Year Summary File (Sequence-Based)

The 2016-2020 ACS 5-year data products that report data related to Congressional Districts are based on the 116th Congress. The Census Bureau does not collect congressional district boundaries from the states during the congressional session that aligns with the decennial census (e.g., 117th). Additional explanation can be found in our geographic user note.

Templates

Includes description of variables in each column for all sequence files and for the comma delimited version (.csv) of the geography file.

5-year Templates [1.6 MB]

Technical Documentation

The Summary File Core Technical Document is now available as What ACS Summary File Data Users Need to Know.

Publication

What ACS Summary File Data Users Need to Know

September 2021

This guide provides an overview of the ACS Summary File and how it can be used to access data on America’s communities.

Documentation on how to use the ACS Summary File with Excel or TIGER/Line Shapefiles

Appendices include the sequence number and restrictions for all tables, as well as summary levels available for each release.

5-year Appendices [<1.0 MB]

Summary File User Tools

Table Shells

Contains table ID, line number, unique ID (table ID + Line Number), stub, and data release

Table Shells [2.1 MB]

Sequence Number/Table Number Lookup File

Contains information on the relationship between the sequences and the tables

5-year Lookup File

Simplified Geography Files

Contains basic geography information, including LOGRECNO, GEOID, and name, in an Excel file with tabs for the US, as well as each state or state equivalent. Compared to the standard geography files in .csv and .txt format, these simplified files contain only the geography variables needed to read the ACS Summary File into Excel.

5-year Simplified Geography Files [18.8 MB]

SAS Programs

Contains SAS programs for each sequence per state, which can be used to convert each estimate and margin of error into SAS datasets with table stubs

5-year SAS programs [37.6 MB]

Example of Creating a Table Using SAS [<1.0 MB]

Detailed example SAS program containing SAS macros which access the geography, estimate and margin of error data. It creates one table for all geographies from the ACS Summary File. Segments of the SAS codes can be used to convert geography files into SAS datasets.