Lifeline enrollment by state
How many households get the Lifeline phone discount in each state, from USAC's own claims data. We total it every month so you do not have to.
Data for May 2026 · Retrieved from USACThe 10 largest states and territories
Every state and territory
Select a column heading to sort. Select a state to see its rules and providers. Download this table (CSV).
| California | 1,547,538 | −41,434 | −2.6% |
|---|---|---|---|
| New York | 896,150 | +23,492 | +2.7% |
| Michigan | 399,305 | +4,010 | +1.0% |
| Puerto Rico territory | 396,944 | −66,591 | −14.4% |
| Pennsylvania | 390,469 | +30,257 | +8.4% |
| Florida | 285,082 | −55,110 | −16.2% |
| Texas | 264,499 | +64,592 | +32.3% |
| Ohio | 253,319 | −5,454 | −2.1% |
| Georgia | 229,356 | −8,966 | −3.8% |
| Oklahoma | 204,487 | +38,357 | +23.1% |
| Virginia | 202,851 | +20,390 | +11.2% |
| Kentucky | 179,927 | +14,496 | +8.8% |
| Illinois | 176,323 | −2,854 | −1.6% |
| Louisiana | 148,294 | −1,988 | −1.3% |
| Washington | 141,161 | +273 | +0.2% |
| Tennessee | 130,793 | −5,381 | −4.0% |
| Arizona | 126,809 | −16,953 | −11.8% |
| New Jersey | 120,465 | −12,945 | −9.7% |
| Missouri | 120,316 | +8,723 | +7.8% |
| Indiana | 118,564 | −4,684 | −3.8% |
| Wisconsin | 117,759 | +14,003 | +13.5% |
| Maryland | 116,630 | −7,677 | −6.2% |
| South Carolina | 111,644 | −475 | −0.4% |
| Alabama | 101,160 | −4,460 | −4.2% |
| North Carolina | 90,473 | −18,361 | −16.9% |
| Mississippi | 87,238 | +10,478 | +13.7% |
| Nevada | 85,679 | −132 | −0.2% |
| Colorado | 82,350 | −611 | −0.7% |
| West Virginia | 78,290 | +21,080 | +36.8% |
| Minnesota | 77,997 | +2,301 | +3.0% |
| Massachusetts | 65,961 | −24,418 | −27.0% |
| Arkansas | 62,274 | +4,070 | +7.0% |
| Iowa | 48,976 | +4,231 | +9.5% |
| New Mexico | 40,777 | −6,642 | −14.0% |
| Connecticut | 33,744 | −9,489 | −21.9% |
| Utah | 31,396 | −3,722 | −10.6% |
| Oregon | 26,976 | −10,190 | −27.4% |
| Rhode Island | 19,964 | −3,259 | −14.0% |
| Alaska | 18,307 | +66 | +0.4% |
| Maine | 15,893 | +1,108 | +7.5% |
| Kansas | 14,084 | −2,074 | −12.8% |
| Hawaii | 13,408 | −342 | −2.5% |
| Idaho | 13,236 | −408 | −3.0% |
| Nebraska | 11,256 | +2,605 | +30.1% |
| District of Columbia | 10,420 | −3,258 | −23.8% |
| North Dakota | 8,027 | +1,044 | +15.0% |
| Delaware | 7,338 | −1,914 | −20.7% |
| Vermont | 7,221 | +248 | +3.6% |
| South Dakota | 7,062 | +294 | +4.3% |
| Montana | 6,318 | +2,008 | +46.6% |
| New Hampshire | 5,714 | −1,008 | −15.0% |
| American Samoa territory | 2,705 | +319 | +13.4% |
| Wyoming | 1,491 | +31 | +2.1% |
| Northern Mariana Islands territory | 1,305 | −143 | −9.9% |
| Guam territory | 276 | +49 | +21.6% |
| U.S. Virgin Islands territory | 214 | −351 | −62.1% |
| United States total | 7,756,215 | −52,769 | −0.7% |
Change compares May 2026 with May 2025. The total covers 50 states, the District of Columbia and 5 territories.
Biggest changes since May 2025
A few hundred households can move a small state's percentage a long way. So this compares only the 37 states that had at least 20,000 subscribers in May 2025.
Grew the most
- West Virginia: 57,210 to 78,290 (+36.8%)
- Texas: 199,907 to 264,499 (+32.3%)
- Oklahoma: 166,130 to 204,487 (+23.1%)
Fell the most
- Oregon: 37,166 to 26,976 (−27.4%)
- Massachusetts: 90,379 to 65,961 (−27.0%)
- Connecticut: 43,233 to 33,744 (−21.9%)
The claims data shows how much each state changed, not why. Each state's guide has its rules and the companies that serve it.
What these numbers mean
Lifeline is a federal discount on phone or internet service for low-income households. The money goes to the phone company, not to you. Each month, every company tells USAC how many customers it gave the discount to, and USAC pays it. This page counts those claims.
One subscriber is one household getting the discount that month. A household can have only one. So the table is a good measure of how many households in each state use Lifeline, and of which way that number is moving.
USAC also publishes enrollment counts from its National Lifeline Accountability Database twice a year (USAC). Those are counted a different way, so they will not match these figures exactly.
What happened after the ACP ended
The Affordable Connectivity Program, or ACP, was a bigger and separate discount. It "ended on June 1, 2024, due to a lack of additional funding from Congress" (USAC). Lifeline kept going. More on the ACP.
Lifeline did not shrink when the ACP ended. It grew. In May 2024, the last month of the ACP, companies claimed Lifeline for 7.12 million subscribers. Claims then rose for 8 months, to 8.16 million in January 2025. That is about 1.03 million more households.
Most of that gain did not last. Claims fell through 2025, to 7.34 million in August 2025. By May 2026 they were back up to 7.76 million, 0.7% lower than a year earlier.
The claims data shows what changed, not why. USAC does not record why a household joins or leaves. Lifeline does have two rules that remove people: you must recertify once a year, and the benefit is cancelled after 30 days without use. How to recertify.
Method
- Source. USAC's Lifeline Disbursements dataset on its open data portal (ID tfxa-gt3x). USAC updates it monthly. The copy used here was last updated by USAC on October 15, 2026 and runs to the September 2026 support month.
- What we count. Claim rows for the Lifeline program only. We add up the subscriber count for each state and each support month, which is the month the service was given. When a company corrects a claim, the correction arrives as an extra row holding the difference, so the total stays right.
- Why May 2026. Companies keep filing and correcting claims for months. In this data, a month reaches its final count about five months later. We show the latest month with five months of filings behind it. Later months are in the dataset but are still filling in: September 2026 shows only 4.89 million so far.
- 12-month change. May 2026 compared with May 2025, counted the same way.
- Territories. American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands are in the table and the total. They have no state guide on this site.
- Oregon and Texas check eligibility through their own state systems, but their phone companies still claim the discount from USAC, so they are included.
- Refresh. We rerun our script against USAC's data and republish. The script and its output are in the site's code.