• What is the 2020 Census New Construction Program (New Construction Program)?
• Why Participate in the New Construction Program?
• Who Can Participate in the New Construction Program?
• What's New?
• How to Participate
• How to Prepare for Participation
• Response Options
• 2020 Census New Construction Program Participant Materials
• Training Webinar Information
  
• The New Construction Program Schedule
• Where Can I Find More Information?
  
• Contact Information

The Census Bureau is no longer accepting submissions for the 2020 Census New Construction Program.

The New Construction Program provides tribal, state, and local governments an opportunity to update the U.S. Census Bureau’s residential address list with living quarters for which construction is in progress during or after March 1, 2018 and completion is expected by Census Day, April 1, 2020. 

The New Construction Program helps ensure that the Census Bureau’s address list is as complete and accurate as possible by Census Day, April 1, 2020, to produce a complete and accurate population count.

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Participation in the New Construction Program helps to ensure an accurate population count in your community; helps the federal government distribute more than $675 billion in funds annually for infrastructure, programs, and services; and helps your community plan for future needs.

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The New Construction Program is offered to federally recognized tribes with a reservation and/or off-reservation trust lands, states, counties, incorporated places (cities, towns, villages), and minor civil divisions (townships) that contain blocks where the Census Bureau plans to mail questionnaires to housing units for the 2020 Census.

Enumerators will deliver 2020 Census questionnaires to all housing units in each block and record addresses for any new housing units for governments that are not eligible to participate in the New Construction Program.

View the 2020 New Construction Program Registration Viewer to see what entities have registered to participate.

The 2020 Census Type of Enumeration Area (TEA) Viewer is an interactive map application that shows how different geographic areas will be invited to respond to the 2020 Census. The TEA Viewer allows users to explore the interactive map, down to the census tract level, and see what percentage of housing units are within each TEA.

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• State governments can now participate in the New Construction Program.
• Group quarters and transitory locations are now collected during the New Construction Program.

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Invited governments designated a New Construction Program liaison in June 2019. The Census Bureau provided materials to the New Construction Program liaison in September 2019.

The New Construction Program liaison uses the pre-formatted materials provided by the Census Bureau to submit a list of city-style addresses. Maps or spatial data are provided as a reference for assigning census tract or block codes for each submitted address. Please ensure that all addresses contain the required geocode information to successfully update our Master Address File, resulting in an accurate population count for your community.

The Census Bureau cannot accept street or boundary updates submitted to the New Construction Program.

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Participants can begin preparation by identifying local address sources, such as building permits, E-911 address files, local utility records, assessment files, or taxation files.

Ensure that your local address list contains multiunit structure identifiers (such as apartment numbers for individual units) and that you can distinguish between residential addresses and nonresidential addresses within the list.

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Participants must respond to the New Construction Program digitally. The Census Bureau offers three digital methods for preparing a New Construction Program response.

1. Basic digital option: The Geographic Update Partnership Software (GUPS) is a free, customized Geographic Information System (GIS) tool developed for participants who do not have geographic training or are not experienced GIS users, but is available for any participant to use. GUPS is available for download from the Census Bureau’s website or sent on a disc for installation, depending on which option was selected during registration.
   


2. Advanced digital option: Experienced GIS users can utilize their own GIS software. The Census Bureau provides free GIS shapefiles on its website, along with digital update guidelines. Governments can use the provided shapefiles for reference when updating their city-style address list.
   
   The Census Bureau offers Block Maps, if requested during registration, displaying the Census Blocks for which participants may submit new addresses.

Additional information regarding participation is available in the respondent guides located within the 2020 Census New Construction Program Participant Materials section.

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The following documents are for reference. The Census Bureau is no longer accepting submissions for the 2020 Census New Construction Program.

New Construction Program Quick Start Guides

The Quick Start Guides are a helpful resource to get started for participants using materials provided digitally on CD/DVD.

New Construction Program Respondent Guides

The Respondent Guides provide detailed instructions to participants for using the New Construction Program materials to submit their newly constructed addresses to the Census Bureau.

Download Geographic Update Partnership Software (GUPS)

Download the GUPS software by selecting the "Download GUPS" link below if the basic digital option was selected during registration.

1. Download the GUPS software from the website to the computer.

2. Unzip the file and extract all contents of the unzipped package to a folder on the computer.

3. Double-click on the file named SETUP-10.0.x.x.bat to start the installation.

4. When the installer opens, the Welcome to the QGIS GUPS Setup Wizard screen will appear. Follow the instructions on the Wizard and click the Next button.

5. The License Agreement screen will appear. Review the License Agreement and click the I Agree button to continue the install process.

6. The Choose Install Location screen will appear. Click on the Browse button to choose the location where GUPS will be installed. The Census Bureau recommends installation of the application at the default location shown (C:\QGIS344). Click Next to continue the install process.

7. The Choose Components screen will appear. Click Install to continue.

8. The software should take 5 to 10 minutes to complete the install. When the install is complete, the Completing the QGIS GUPS Setup Wizard screen will appear. To complete the install, click the Finish button at the bottom of the screen.

Download Data - New Construction Program Partnership Shapefiles

Partnership shapefiles are a digital representation of geographic features, such as roads and boundaries used to create maps. If the advanced digital option was selected during registration, participants use the Partnership shapefiles as a reference for geocoding individual addresses into the proper location.

Select the name of the state in which the entity is located from the drop-down list. The system routes participants to a file transfer protocol (FTP) directory for that state.

New Construction Program Address List Template

The Address List Template is a blank Microsoft Excel .xls spreadsheet included on the Data Disc and New Construction Program website below for use by all New Construction Program participants whether they requested Reference PDF Maps or Partnership shapefiles during registration. The Census Bureau provides this header file as a reference for participants to ensure that eligible residential, city-style addresses for housing units, group quarters, and transitory locations are submitted in the required format. The file contains a preset format to preserve all fields as Text.

New Construction Program Demonstration Video

The New Construction Program Demonstration Video provides an overview of the program and details the use of GUPS and the Address List Template for submitting addresses to the Census Bureau.

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The Census Bureau is no longer conducting live webinars. Reference the New Construction Program Demonstration Video section to view a recorded webinar. If governments require assistance, please contact the Census Bureau by email at GEO.2020.NC@census.gov.

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April - May 2019 – Invitation and registration materials sent to Highest Elected Officials and Tribal Chairs of eligible governments.

June 14, 2019 – New Construction Program registration deadline.

September 2019 – Registered participants received/downloaded materials. Participants had 45 calendar days to respond after receiving the notification of materials.

September 2019 – Training webinars began.

September - October 2019 – Email reminders sent.

December 2019 – Closeout materials sent to participants.

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Email: GEO.2020.NC@census.gov

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