Census Bureau wants to drop solar panel and veterans' service questions from the ACS

The U.S. Census Bureau wants to stop asking Americans whether their homes have solar panels and when veterans served in the military. A notice published November 2 proposes removing both questions from the American Community Survey starting in 2028, and the public has until January 4, 2027, to comment.

The proposal grew out of a 2026 review of every question on the survey. More than 60 federal agencies, including 17 independent agencies and all but three cabinet departments, told the bureau how they use the data, and the review classified more than 400 uses. Two questions came out of it "no longer having a mandatory or required federal use": solar panels and veterans' period of military service.

That standard matters because the survey is mandatory. The bureau sorts each federal use into one of four groups. A use is mandatory when a law calls for census data, required when a law or court case needs specific data the census has supplied, programmatic when an agency uses the data without a legal requirement, and operational when the bureau needs it to run the survey. Only mandatory, required, or operational uses earn a question on the form. Programmatic uses alone do not.

The solar question is brand new. It was first asked in 2025, and the first results came out October 29. They showed about 7.7 million of the country's 148 million housing units, or 5.2 percent, with solar panels, from 30.4 percent in Hawaii and 17.1 percent in California down to 0.5 percent in North Dakota. If the change goes through, 2025, 2026, and 2027 would be the only years of solar data the survey produces.

The veterans change is narrower. The survey would still ask whether a person has served on active duty, so the count of veterans would continue. What would go is the follow-up about when they served, which sorts veterans into eras such as the Vietnam War and the post-9/11 Gulf War period. That is the question behind our breakdown of veterans by the war they served in.

The 2025 survey counted 15.7 million civilian veterans age 18 and older, 5.9 percent of civilian adults. Those who served after September 2001 now slightly outnumber those who served in the Vietnam era, 4.95 million to 4.87 million. A year earlier, Vietnam-era veterans still led, 4.91 million to 4.70 million. A veteran who served in both periods is counted in both groups.

The notice also points to a bigger shift in how the survey gets its answers. Federal law directs the bureau to use records other agencies already collect wherever it can instead of asking people directly. Since January 2024, the survey has skipped its question on property lot size when it has acreage from property tax records bought from a private vendor. Starting as early as 2028, the bureau plans to do the same for some respondents on seven more questions: agricultural sales, year built, number of rooms, number of bedrooms, units in the structure, building type, and home heating fuel. It says it will publish its research on those methods.

The survey reaches about 3.54 million addresses a year, and the bureau estimates the average household needs 40 minutes to finish it. The bureau is asking for comments on the two removals and on replacing questions with records, and it invited the agencies that rely on the two questions to send in new justification. Comments go to docket USBC-2026-0760 on regulations.gov.

The notice is separate from the bureau's proposed 2030 census rule, which drew 143,238 comments before its period closed November 2. That rule would bar race and ethnicity questions from the census form but leave the bureau free to ask them on the American Community Survey. For how the survey works and why it is mandatory, see our explainer.

Sources

U.S. Census Bureau, "Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for Review and Approval; Comment Request; American Community Survey and Puerto Rico Community Survey," Federal Register document 2026-22322, November 2, 2026. The Census Project, "Census Bureau Proposes Removing Questions from the ACS in 2028," November 3, 2026. Veteran counts from American Community Survey 1-year estimates, 2024 and 2025, table B21002 (period of military service for civilian veterans 18 years and over) and table S2101. Solar figures from the 2025 American Community Survey 1-year estimates.