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Yes: the Census Bureau conducts the decennial census by mail, online, by phone, and in person. Most households get an invitation letter with an online response code, and households that don't respond get follow-up mailings plus a paper questionnaire. The Bureau ran its first 2030 field test, the 2026 Census Test, in parts of South Carolina and Alabama, with a USPS pilot using postal workers to collect responses.
The census still starts with a letter. Every household in the country gets an invitation in the mail, with a response code tied to the address rather than to any person. Online is the default way to answer, but phone and mail are full alternatives, not afterthoughts. Households that don't answer get reminder letters, and then a paper questionnaire arrives by mail. If nobody responds at all, a census taker visits in person. That layered sequence is what keeps response rates high enough to count the whole country.
Answering is required by federal law, Title 13 of the U.S. Code, though prosecutions for nonresponse are essentially unheard of. The practical takeaway: the invitation letter is not junk mail, and tossing it means a census taker may knock on your door later.
The Bureau runs field tests in the decade before each census to rehearse new methods. The 2026 Census Test, the first of two planned tests ahead of 2030, wrapped up on August 31, 2026, in selected areas of Spartanburg, South Carolina and Huntsville, Alabama. One of its headline experiments was a USPS pilot: postal workers helped collect responses from households that didn't answer on their own, either while on their mail routes or after their shifts. The test questionnaire ran about 40 minutes in English and covered name, sex, age, Hispanic origin, race, citizenship, and education. A second, larger rehearsal is planned for 2028.
| Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Status | Concluded August 31, 2026 |
| Test sites | Selected areas of Spartanburg, SC and Huntsville, AL |
| Purpose | First of two field tests rehearsing methods for the 2030 Census |
| USPS pilot | Postal workers collected responses from non-responding households |
| 2030 Census | The 25th census in United States history |
Real census mail never asks for money, bank account numbers, passwords, or donations, and the census never asks for your Social Security number. Scam mail dressed up as census material usually wants one of those things, or asks you to call a number and "confirm" personal details. Genuine census mail comes from the U.S. Census Bureau with a Bureau return address. If a letter feels off, don't use the phone number printed on it: look up the Bureau's published contact information yourself.
Yes, in a similar way. Statistics Canada mails households an access code for the online questionnaire, with paper forms available, and runs its census every five years rather than every ten. The same scam rule applies: the real census never asks for payment.
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