How Many Americans Live Abroad? The 9 Million Figure Is Going Away
Nobody Actually Knows How Many Americans Live Abroad
- The long-cited estimate was 9 million, attributed to a 2016 State Department calculation.
- The State Department has stopped standing behind that figure, citing the absence of authoritative source data.
- Independent estimates cluster between 4 and 5.5 million, roughly half the long-cited number.
- The U.S. government does not count its citizens abroad, and the Census Bureau excludes them from the decennial count.
Per the link, above, the inflated 9 million figure might have been intentionally or unintentionally used to imply tax evasion by US citizens living abroad. When the number is cut in half – to what it may actually be – the issue of tax evasion evaporates.