2026 Census Test Updates

U.S. Census Bureau to Conduct Pilot With U.S. Postal Service for 2026 Operational Test

March 23 — The U.S. Census Bureau last month announced it has modified its 2026 Census Test sites to Huntsville, Alabama, and Spartanburg, South Carolina.  These sites were selected to give the Census Bureau the opportunity to explore how working with the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) could increase effectiveness and how to improve in-field enumeration processes for the 2030 Census.

Census Bureau To Embargo Vintage 2025 Population Estimates

On March 24, the U.S. Census Bureau will offer a two-day embargo period for qualified media to view the Vintage 2025 estimates of total population and components of change for U.S. counties and metropolitan and micropolitan statistical areas, and total population for Puerto Rico municipios and metropolitan and micropolitan statistical areas. These estimates reflect population changes between April 1, 2020, and July 1, 2025.

When:

Tuesday, March 24, at 10 a.m. ET to Thursday, March 26, at 12:01 a.m. ET.

Obtain media embargo access:

Visit the Census Bureau’s embargo site to register for embargo access.

The embargoed information may not be published, broadcast, posted online, distributed via wire and distribution services, or shared until the public release date and time (Thursday, March 26, at 12:01 a.m. ET).

On March 26, the U.S. Census Bureau will release the Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS) measures business conditions on an ongoing basis. BTOS experimental data products are representative of all employer businesses other than farms in the U.S. economy. The data allow greater insight into the state of the economy by providing continuous, timely information for key economic measures. Data are released biweekly and are available by sector, state, employment size and the 25 most populous metropolitan statistical areas. New questions on artificial intelligence were added Nov. 17 and will be released in Spring 2026.