How have improper payments changed over the years?
Improper payments by fiscal year across all loaded years: from $45.00B (2004) to $185.84B (2025).
| Fiscal year | Improper payments |
|---|---|
| 2004 | $45.00B |
| 2005 | $38.41B |
| 2006 | $40.59B |
| 2007 | $42.02B |
| 2008 | $72.82B |
| 2009 | $105.14B |
| 2010 | $120.84B |
| 2011 | $115.31B |
| 2012 | $107.68B |
| 2013 | $105.92B |
| 2014 | $124.61B |
| 2015 | $136.95B |
| 2016 | $144.41B |
| 2017 | $140.87B |
| 2018 | $150.66B |
| 2019 | $174.79B |
| 2020 | $206.42B |
| 2021 | $281.40B |
| 2022 | $246.97B |
| 2023 | $235.77B |
| 2024 | $161.54B |
| 2025 | $185.84B |
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How to read this
- Improper payments are agencies' own estimates from samples (PaymentAccuracy.gov, OMB, under the Payment Integrity Information Act): payments that should not have been made or were the wrong amount, plus unknown payments the agency couldn't show were proper. They are not all losses (underpayments and documentation gaps count) and not fraud as such; only risk-susceptible programs are measured.
- Years are the fiscal year of the report; each estimate usually samples payments from an earlier 12 months. Programs join and leave the list, so totals across years compare different sets of programs.