When a new year of data arrives
Last checked against the NHTSA pages:
The newest year on this site is 2024. FARS is later than the calendar. State analysts code each crash from documents, and NHTSA checks the files before it publishes them.
The files of NHTSA
- Early estimate. NHTSA publishes an estimate of the national total some months after the end of a year. It is not a FARS count, and it is not on this site.
- Annual file. The first FARS file of a crash year. NHTSA calls it the Annual Report File (ARF). NHTSA released the annual file of 2024 on 1 Apr 2026.
- Final file. About one year later, NHTSA releases the year again as a final file. Counts can change between the two files.
The set of first files, known as the Annual Report File (ARF), is released following the crash year. The ARF is replaced about a year later with a final file, which contains additional cases or updates to cases that had become available after the ARF was released.
NHTSA released the last 5 annual files 14 to 15 months after the end of the year. With the same delay, the FARS 2025 annual file comes in about April 2027. This is an estimate of this site. It is not a date from NHTSA.
NHTSA wrote about the next files in its early estimate for 2025:
The fatality counts for 2024 and 2025 and the ensuing percentage change from 2024 to 2025 will be slightly revised when the FARS Final File for 2024 and the FARS Annual Report File (ARF) for 2025 are made available in early 2027.
The page FARS release dates has the date of each file.
What happens on this site
When NHTSA publishes 2025, the site is built again. The ten years move forward by one year, and each rate and each count is made again. Each county, state and route page then shows the two years side by side in the block "Since the last update". The change log records the day.
When NHTSA revises the year on file, the site shows the figures before and after the revision.
If you quote a figure from this site, give its year and its file.
Older years
The site reads the years 1975 to 2014 from one fixed copy. It does not track later revisions of these years. For the years from 2015, the data program checks the release notes of NHTSA at each run.
Sources
This guide follows the FARS Analytical User's Manual, 1975-2024 (appendix G), the release notes of NHTSA for each year and the early estimate for 2025. The text was checked against them on 2 October 2026. The estimate of the usual delay uses the dates in the release notes.