Private jets use 7 percent of airspace but pay under 0.6 percent of aviation trust fund taxes, report says

Noncommercial private jets account for 7 percent of U.S. airspace activity but contribute less than 0.6 percent of the taxes that flow into the Airport and Airway Trust Fund, according to a new report from the Institute for Policy Studies. The think tank cites U.S. Department of Transportation estimates for the figures in its report, “High Flyers 2026,” released Sept. 18.

The trust fund helps finance Federal Aviation Administration operations. Including charter services, private jets account for roughly 16 percent of FAA-handled flight operations, the report says. The institute estimates that about 256,000 people, or roughly 0.003 percent of the population, fly on private jets.

The report also puts numbers on the climate cost. It says a private jet passenger is often responsible for 10 to 14 times or more the emissions of a commercial airline passenger, and roughly 50 times those of a passenger traveling the same route by rail. The institute says the warming effect of aircraft emissions at altitude can be two to four times greater than that of the carbon dioxide alone.

On public spending, the institute says more than a third of all Airport Infrastructure Grants awarded through 2026 went to airport projects that may primarily benefit private jets, amounting to more than $1.13 billion. It says a luxury tax of 10 percent on used jets and 5 percent on new jets could have raised more than $3 billion in 2025.

The report says ownership is concentrated among the very wealthy. It puts the median wealth of a private jet owner at $190 million and that of a fractional owner at $140 million. Fractional jet ownership increased 65 percent between 2019 and 2025, and there are 3,428 billionaires worldwide this year, according to the institute.

The institute says the National Business Aviation Association spent approximately $2 million on lobbying in 2025, in favor of legislation that includes tax breaks for private jet owners such as the permanent accelerated depreciation provision passed that year. The association is the trade group for business aviation.

The report’s recommendations include repealing one-year accelerated bonus depreciation on private jet purchases, raising the tax on private jet fuel, levying a luxury tax on jet sales and stopping the funding and construction of new private jet infrastructure. It calls so-called sustainable aviation fuels a distraction and says there is no scalable, cost-effective alternative to kerosene-based jet fuel available at the speed of the climate crisis.

The institute also singled out a pending bill. Congress should strip a private jet tax provision from the ALERT Act, the report’s co-author Chuck Collins said. “The private jet lobby is cynically and shamelessly inserting yet another tax break for private jets into legislation to respond to the Potomac river aircraft-helicopter crash in January 2025,” Collins said.

The House passed the ALERT Act 396 to 10. Lawmakers introduced it Feb. 20 after the National Transportation Safety Board completed its investigation of the January 2025 collision between American Airlines Flight 5342 and an Army Black Hawk helicopter near Reagan Washington National Airport. The bill implements all 50 of the board’s recommendations, according to the House Armed Services Committee’s Democratic staff.

An amendment added to the House-passed bill would prohibit using aircraft transponder data “to identify aircraft for the purpose of obtaining revenue from the owner or operator” without permission, The Center Square reported. The data, known as ADS-B, is a location signal that aircraft broadcast publicly as a collision-avoidance tool. Supporters of the amendment say using it to collect landing fees is a misuse of a safety system. “Airports and state and local tax collectors can still collect fees, they just wouldn’t be able to use an aircraft collision avoidance device to do so,” said Jim Coon of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.

Opponents say the amendment goes further because it also bars use of the data for state and local tax enforcement, according to The Center Square. Some Texas residents who own private jets avoid property taxes by registering the aircraft in another state, often Montana, and ADS-B data is among the few tools local governments have to catch it. Based on public tax rolls, The Center Square reported that Texas alone could lose as much as $70.2 million a year in revenue if the Senate approves the amendment.

The Center Square reported in August that senators would have to decide whether to advance the bill when Congress returned from recess in September.