A public jail does not make money per inmate in any meaningful sense. It collects a mix of per diem reimbursements, inmate fees, and vendor commissions that together offset only a fraction of what it costs to hold someone, with the average annual cost per incarcerated person running $47,057 in a comprehensive survey of 35 jail systems.1Vera Institute of Justice. The Price of Jails Measuring the Taxpayer Cost of Local Incarceration Private correctional facilities are the exception. Under government contracts they take in roughly $103 per inmate per day and have posted record profits recently.
The gap between what jails collect and what they spend is closed by local taxpayers. Jail operations consume about one out of every seventeen county dollars, putting jails among the top six line items in a typical county budget.
What a Jail Actually Collects per Inmate
Public jails have four main revenue lines tied to the people they hold. None of them, alone or together, comes close to covering costs.
Per Diem Payments From State and Federal Agencies
When a county jail houses someone who has been sentenced to state prison but not yet transferred, the state pays a daily rate. Those rates usually run $35 to $50 per day, against a true daily cost of $80 to $170 or more depending on the facility.
Federal detainees are more lucrative. The U.S. Marshals Service negotiates a facility-specific rate with each participating jail. Based on 2025 data, local jails charged the Marshals Service anywhere from $45 to $170 per day, with most falling between $60 and $110. Privately operated detention facilities in the same program charged rates at the higher end, sometimes exceeding $160. Participation is not automatic; a jail needs bed space, adequate standards, and an intergovernmental agreement.
Federal grant programs add a smaller stream. The State Criminal Alien Assistance Program reimburses local jails for part of the cost of incarcerating certain noncitizens, with Congress allocating $234 million for 2024 spread across thousands of facilities.
Fees Charged to the Inmate
Jails bill inmates directly for several things, though collection is another matter:
- Medical co-pays of $2 to $5 per inmate-initiated visit at most jails, with state and local facilities that charge co-pays generally falling in the $3 to $10 range. Emergency care, chronic disease treatment, and mental health services are typically exempt.2Federal Register. Inmate Fees for Health Care Services
- Pay-to-stay room-and-board fees in some jurisdictions, often $20 to $80 per day.
- One-time booking fees, ranging from under $25 to over $150.
Most incarcerated people earn pennies per hour in jail work assignments or have no income at all, so these charges frequently become post-release debts rather than actual revenue during confinement.
Phone and Commissary Commissions
This is where the numbers get larger. Telecom and commissary vendors sell calls, video visits, tablet services, snacks, and hygiene products to incarcerated people, and the jail takes a cut. Commissary commissions commonly run 30 to 40 percent of net sales, and telecom commissions have historically followed a similar structure. Nationally, families of incarcerated people spend an estimated $5.6 billion a year on these services across all prisons and jails. For a large facility, commissions can add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars annually, flowing into either the general fund or a dedicated inmate welfare account.
The phone side has been squeezed by federal regulators. Under the Martha Wright-Reed Act, the FCC finalized interim rate caps that took effect in April 2026. Audio calls from jails are now capped between $0.08 and $0.17 per minute depending on facility size, and video calls between $0.17 and $0.42 per minute. Smaller jails get higher caps because their per-inmate infrastructure costs are steeper. Providers may charge an additional $0.02 per minute to cover costs the jail incurs making communications available.3Federal Register. Implementation of the Martha Wright-Reed Act Rates for Incarcerated Peoples Communication Services Before these caps, some facilities charged families over $1.00 per minute, with a large share flowing back to the jail as commissions.
Social Security Reporting Incentives
The Social Security Administration pays jails to report incarcerated individuals who are receiving benefits, because those benefits are supposed to be suspended during confinement. A jail that reports a new inmate’s Social Security information within 30 days of confinement receives $400. Reports filed between 30 and 90 days earn $200. Anything after 90 days pays nothing.4Social Security Administration. SSA Title II and Title XVI Incentive Payment Programs If the inmate receives both Title II retirement or disability benefits and Title XVI Supplemental Security Income, the jail collects a combined payment split across both programs.
What Each Inmate Costs to House
The cost side dwarfs everything above. The Vera Institute’s survey of 35 jurisdictions put the average annual cost per incarcerated person at $47,057, a figure that is likely higher now given wage and healthcare inflation since the study.1Vera Institute of Justice. The Price of Jails Measuring the Taxpayer Cost of Local Incarceration
Payroll accounts for about 74 percent of total jail costs.1Vera Institute of Justice. The Price of Jails Measuring the Taxpayer Cost of Local Incarceration Correctional officers earned a median annual wage of $57,970 as of May 2024, plus benefits.5U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Correctional Officers and Bailiffs Occupational Outlook Handbook Add administrative staff, medical personnel, kitchen workers, and maintenance crews, and a housing unit requiring round-the-clock coverage across three shifts becomes the dominant line in the budget.
Healthcare is the next major driver and the most unpredictable. Jails are constitutionally required to provide medical care, and the population arrives with high rates of chronic illness, mental health conditions, and substance use disorders. A single inmate requiring hospitalization can consume tens of thousands of dollars in weeks. The Vera study found that significant healthcare expenditures often don’t appear in the jail’s own budget at all, showing up instead in other county agency budgets, which means the true per-inmate healthcare cost is higher than official figures suggest.1Vera Institute of Justice. The Price of Jails Measuring the Taxpayer Cost of Local Incarceration
Litigation costs also sit outside the standard per-inmate figure. Large county jail systems can spend tens of millions per year on settlements and defense costs tied to conditions of confinement, use of force, inadequate medical care, and wrongful deaths, but these bills typically come out of a separate county legal fund.
Why the Per-Inmate Number Swings So Widely
A jail in a rural Southern county and one in coastal California can spend very different amounts per inmate. Three factors explain most of the spread.
Geography sets labor costs. Officer salaries track local cost of living, and since payroll is roughly three-quarters of the budget, wage differences alone can double or halve the per-inmate figure.
Security level changes the math too. Higher-security inmates require more officers per housing unit and more restrictive infrastructure. In the federal Bureau of Prisons, housing a minimum-security inmate cost $151.02 per day in FY 2022 while a high-security inmate cost $164.87. Medical referral centers, which house inmates needing ongoing specialized care, cost $281.80 per day, nearly double the system average.6Bureau of Prisons. Federal Prison System Per Capita Costs FY 2022 Summary
Occupancy matters as well. An overcrowded jail spreads fixed costs across more inmates, lowering the per-person figure on paper. An underutilized one has high per-inmate costs because the building, utilities, and minimum staffing levels are largely fixed whether the jail holds 200 people or 400.
How Private Facilities Do Turn a Profit
Everything above describes public jails, which make up the vast majority of local detention. Private correctional facilities operate on a different model. They contract with government agencies for a daily rate per inmate and try to run below that rate.
CoreCivic, one of the two largest private prison companies, reported revenue of $102.79 per compensated man-day at its safety facilities in 2024, which works out to roughly $37,500 per inmate per year in top-line revenue.7CoreCivic, Inc. Annual Report Form 10-K The company posted $116.5 million in profit in 2025, a nearly 70 percent increase over the prior year. Competitor GEO Group reported $254 million in profit in 2025, a roughly 700 percent jump from 2024, driven largely by expanded federal immigration enforcement contracts.
The profit model relies on high occupancy and lower spending on staffing and programming. Many contracts include minimum-occupancy guarantees where the government pays for a set number of beds whether filled or not. In the federal system, privately operated institutions cost $93.05 per day in FY 2022, compared with the system-wide average of $138.54.6Bureau of Prisons. Federal Prison System Per Capita Costs FY 2022 Summary
Jails Are Not Prisons
The figures above describe jails, which are local facilities run by counties or municipalities holding people awaiting trial, serving short sentences, or waiting to be transferred. Their budgets come primarily from local taxes and their populations turn over constantly. Prisons are state or federal facilities housing people serving longer sentences on state or federal budgets. The federal Bureau of Prisons spent an average of $138.54 per inmate per day across all security levels in FY 2022, or about $50,600 annually.6Bureau of Prisons. Federal Prison System Per Capita Costs FY 2022 Summary Private operators are more common in prisons than in local jails, though some county jails contract with private companies for management or specific services such as healthcare.