The U.S. Census Bureau is currently transforming how we disseminate data to allow for a more seamless and customized user experience through Census.gov. The foundation of this transformation is the centralization of all data into the Census API in a uniform and consistent format across all the datasets and surveys. We understand that standardization means changes for our developers, but the trade off will be greater data accessibility in an easier, more customer-focused experience.

As part of consistency in format, the American Community Survey (ACS) will now include annotation fields for all estimates. This will enable the estimates to be numeric and the character overrides will be stored in the corresponding annotation field. To accommodate this format change, the ACS endpoints will change to add 'acs/' into the URI after the year.

To prepare for these changes, we have made the 2015 ACS 1-Year available in the new format as an early review. A guide [PDF <1.0 MB] includes specific examples on how both the content format and the endpoints changed. Please note that beginning with the release of the 2016 ACS 1-Year estimates on September 14, 2017, the data will only be available in the new format. We will continue to maintain the 2015 1-Year estimates in the original format until October 1, 2017.

We will let you know when the 2015 ACS 5-Year estimates will be available in the new format. Eventually the remainder of the ACS products in the API will be converted to the new format and we will update you when we have a timeline for those releases.  Please contact us via email at cedsci.feedback@census.gov with any questions or concerns you might have.