Proposed 2030 Census Rule Could Cost Florida a House Seat, and Count Snowbirds as Floridians

A Trump administration proposal to change who counts in the 2030 census could pull Florida in two directions at once. By excluding most noncitizens without green cards from the population used to divide seats in the U.S. House, the rule could cost Florida one of the new congressional seats it is expected to gain, according to analyses cited by CNBC and Florida Politics. A new test for where people "usually" live, meanwhile, could add seasonal residents from northern states to Florida's count.

The Census Bureau published the proposed rule on Sept. 10, 2026. It is not final, and critics are already preparing a court challenge under the 14th Amendment.

What the rule would do

The proposal would limit the apportionment population, the state totals used to divide the 435 House seats, to U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents. According to the Congressional Research Service, the exclusion would reach not only people in the country unlawfully but also some people who are lawfully present with a status the rule treats as less permanent than a green card. CNBC reported that the excluded group would include millions of people, among them student visa holders, people with temporary protected status, refugees and asylum seekers. Other reporting says the administration has asked for comment on whether some of those statuses should qualify, so the final lines could shift.

The proposal would write the new criteria into federal regulation, adding Parts 60 and 70 to Title 15 of the Code of Federal Regulations, according to the National Association of Counties. Part 60 covers residence criteria. Part 70 covers demographic questions and would remove race, ethnicity and sexual orientation questions from the decennial questionnaire. The bureau has also invited comment on including a legal-status question on the short-form census, and CRS reported it is considering administrative records from federal agencies, state and local records and commercial data to determine legal status.

In its filing, the administration argued that people in the country without legal status "are not true inhabitants, members of the body politic," and should not be counted for apportionment, CNBC reported.

The seat math for Florida

Florida gained one seat after the 2020 census, bringing its delegation to 28. Population growth since then put the state in line for more after 2030. Florida Politics reported that experts project Florida would gain three seats in the next reapportionment if its population is counted in full, down from an earlier projection of four.

Excluding noncitizens changes that math. A New York Times analysis cited by CNBC found that Florida, Rhode Island and Texas would each stand to lose a seat under the proposal, while Minnesota, Ohio and Oregon could each gain one. Florida Politics, citing the Project On Government Oversight, reported that the rule would cost Florida one of its expected new seats. The Times also estimated the rule could exclude as much as 5% of the U.S. population, and about 9% of residents in Texas, Florida and New Jersey, according to reporting on its analysis.

The pattern is not new. When the first Trump administration tried a similar exclusion for the 2020 count, a Pew Research Center analysis found that leaving out unauthorized immigrants would have cost California, Texas and Florida one seat each.

Snowbirds could be counted here

A second part of the rule could push Florida's numbers the other way. The bureau would define a person's "usual residence" as the place where the person lawfully spent the most days between Jan. 3 and April 1, rather than tying it to a single census day, and that determination would be consistent with and supported by tax records.

For Florida, that window lines up with peak snowbird season, when seasonal residents from northern states are living in Florida. The Minnesota State Demographic Center has warned that Minnesota snowbirds could be counted in a southern state even though their usual residence is in Minnesota. None of the seat projections cited in coverage of the rule estimates how many seasonal residents the change might move onto Florida's rolls, or whether that could offset the noncitizen exclusion.

Florida asked for some of this

Florida's own leaders have pushed the bureau in this direction. In April 2026, Attorney General James Uthmeier petitioned the Census Bureau, with the conservative group America First Legal, to start rulemaking before 2030. The petition asked the bureau to ask every person about citizenship and immigration status, to exclude people in the country unlawfully or only temporarily from apportionment, and to narrow the definition of usual residence.

The state's complaint is rooted in 2020. The bureau's own post-enumeration survey found Florida was undercounted by 3.48%, roughly 760,000 people, among the largest rates of any state. Florida Politics reported that POGO argues the proposed rule would make that undercount problem worse for Florida than for other states, and that Gov. Ron DeSantis and Uthmeier have both argued Florida deserves more House seats.

Billions in federal money ride on the count

Census totals do more than divide House seats. They steer federal dollars for a decade, and NPR reported that census data guides trillions of dollars in federal funding and informs community planning. Florida Politics framed the Florida stakes as potentially billions of dollars in aid. Civil rights groups also warn that dropping race and ethnicity questions would weaken data used to track health outcomes and enforce civil rights protections.

Census Bureau research cited by NPR shows that a citizenship question is likely to discourage households with noncitizens from responding. In a state with a large immigrant population like Florida, a lower response rate could deepen the kind of undercount the state already complains about.

A legal fight is expected

The 14th Amendment says House seats are apportioned by counting the "whole number of persons in each state." Critics say that language rules out leaving anyone out. "The Constitution is pretty clear," ACLU attorney Adriel Cepeda Derieux told NPR. "It doesn't mince words. It doesn't say citizens. It doesn't say green card holders." The ACLU, which sued over the 2020 attempt, is considering another lawsuit.

The administration argues the framers did not intend to count noncitizens without permanent status. Any changes could also be reversed by Congress or by a new administration in 2029, NPR noted.

What's next

The comment period was originally set to close Oct. 13. The bureau has since extended it: NACo, the National Low Income Housing Coalition, the League of Minnesota Cities and CNBC all report comments are now due Nov. 2 at 11:59 p.m. ET, through regulations.gov under docket USBC-2026-0628.

After the period closes, the bureau must review and respond to comments before it can publish a final rule. If it does, lawsuits are expected to follow quickly, and the outcome will decide whether Florida enters the 2030s with the bigger delegation its population growth points to, or one seat short of it.