Data · IRS Data Book
IRS audit rates by income
How many individual returns the IRS has examined at each income level, straight from the IRS's own Data Book, and how to read the numbers without being misled.
Data: Tax years 2015-2023 (IRS Data Book, fiscal year 2025 edition) Sources read Review by
CheckedOct 19, 2026Each year the IRS publishes how many returns it has examined for each recent tax year. For tax year 2021, the most recent year that is past the normal three-year limit for an audit, the IRS had examined 0.3% of all individual returns. The rate climbs with income: 0.9% for returns reporting $1,000,000 under $5,000,000 of total positive income, and 6.6% for $10,000,000 or more.
Total positive income is the IRS's measure for this table: every positive income amount on the return added up, ignoring losses. An examination here means any audit the IRS has closed or still has open, including the many done by letter.
Tax year 2021: share of returns examined
Behind the percentages: for tax year 2021, 51,250 returns reported $10,000,000 or more of total positive income; the IRS had closed 2,680 examinations of them and had 695 more in process. The percentage is closed plus in process, divided by returns filed.
Why the newest years look low
The IRS marks the newest tax years in its table (2022 and 2023) as still open. The IRS generally has three years from the date a return is filed to assess more tax, and it keeps opening audits of a tax year throughout that window, so the percentages for open years are not final and will rise in later editions. That is the main reason the newest years can look low. To compare years fairly, use years that have closed; the newest is 2021. In the chart below, open years are striped.
Every income group, every year
| Total positive income | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 open | 2023 open |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All individual returns | 0.6% | 0.5% | 0.5% | 0.4% | 0.3% | 0.3% | 0.3% | 0.3% | 0.1% |
| No total positive income | 7.0% | 8.4% | 9.4% | 12.0% | 5.6% | 1.1% | 1.8% | 0.7% | 0.3% |
| $1 under $25,000 | 0.7% | 0.6% | 0.6% | 0.4% | 0.4% | 0.4% | 0.5% | 0.5% | 0.2% |
| $25,000 under $50,000 | 0.4% | 0.4% | 0.2% | 0.3% | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.3% | 0.1% |
| $50,000 under $75,000 | 0.5% | 0.3% | 0.3% | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.1% | 0.1% |
| $75,000 under $100,000 | 0.5% | 0.4% | 0.4% | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.1% | less than 0.05% |
| $100,000 under $200,000 | 0.5% | 0.4% | 0.4% | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.1% | less than 0.05% |
| $200,000 under $500,000 | 0.6% | 0.6% | 0.5% | 0.3% | 0.3% | 0.3% | 0.2% | 0.4% | less than 0.05% |
| $500,000 under $1,000,000 | 1.2% | 1.4% | 1.2% | 0.5% | 0.8% | 0.6% | 0.6% | 1.4% | 0.1% |
| $1,000,000 under $5,000,000 | 2.6% | 3.0% | 2.6% | 1.5% | 1.8% | 1.0% | 0.9% | 1.9% | 0.2% |
| $5,000,000 under $10,000,000 | 5.2% | 5.4% | 4.3% | 2.9% | 3.4% | 2.4% | 3.9% | 4.9% | 2.0% |
| $10,000,000 or more | 9.5% | 8.9% | 7.5% | 10.6% | 11.5% | 8.9% | 6.6% | 6.6% | 5.2% |
| International returns | 0.2% | 0.8% | 0.6% | 0.2% | 2.0% | 1.4% | 0.5% | 0.7% | less than 0.05% |
| Returns claiming the earned income tax credit | 1.2% | 1.2% | 1.1% | 0.9% | 0.8% | 1.0% | 0.7% | 0.8% | 0.3% |
How we built this
- Source: IRS Data Book, fiscal year 2025 edition, Table 3-1, the individual income tax rows by size of total positive income. We opened the spreadsheet the IRS publishes and copied the returns filed, examinations closed, examinations in process and the percentage covered for each tax year. Nothing was estimated.
- Checks: for every row, closed plus in process divided by returns filed reproduces the IRS's percentage to its rounding, and the income groups add up to the total returns filed in every year. Where the IRS prints a percentage as too small to show (under five hundredths of one percent), we show its wording. One cell the IRS withheld to protect taxpayer privacy (tax year 2015, earned income tax credit returns) is left out of our check, and the published percentage is shown.
- What it is not: the table counts returns examined, not the chance that any one return will be. It mixes letter audits with field audits, and it says nothing about results.
A work of the United States Government is not subject to copyright in the United States. The IRS and Treasury ask for credit and do not allow their seals or logos, or anything implying endorsement. Basis: 17 U.S.C. 105. We name each agency as the source; nothing here is endorsed by any agency.
The extract this page is built from, with the source, table and row for every value: JSON · CSV.
- Table 3-1. Examination Coverage and Recommended Additional Tax After Examination, by Type and Size of Return, Tax Years 2015–2023 (external site) (file: download (external site))
The shaded tax years show returns still within the normal 3-year statute of limitations. Therefore, the percentage covered and recommended additional tax will increase in future years as additional examinations are completed.