Notice2025-19633
Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for Review and Approval; Comment Request; 2026 Census Test-Group Quarters Advance Contact (GQAC)
Primary source
Metadata and text below are from the Federal Register, a public-domain U.S. government work. Always verify the official published version before relying on it for any legal matter.
Published
October 22, 2025
Issuing agencies
Commerce DepartmentCensus Bureau
Full Text
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<title>Federal Register, Volume 90 Issue 202 (Wednesday, October 22, 2025)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 90, Number 202 (Wednesday, October 22, 2025)]
[Notices]
[Pages 48444-48445]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2025-19633]
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Notices
Federal Register
________________________________________________________________________
This section of the FEDERAL REGISTER contains documents other than rules
or proposed rules that are applicable to the public. Notices of hearings
and investigations, committee meetings, agency decisions and rulings,
delegations of authority, filing of petitions and applications and agency
statements of organization and functions are examples of documents
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Federal Register / Vol. 90, No. 202 / Wednesday, October 22, 2025 /
Notices
[[Page 48444]]
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
Census Bureau
Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission to the
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for Review and Approval; Comment
Request; 2026 Census Test--Group Quarters Advance Contact (GQAC)
The Department of Commerce will submit the following information
collection request to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for
review and clearance in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of
1995, on or after the date of publication of this notice. We invite the
general public and other Federal agencies to comment on proposed, and
continuing information collections, which helps us assess the impact of
our information collection requirements and minimize the public's
reporting burden. Public comments were previously requested via the
Federal Register on November 4, 2024, during a 60-day comment period.
This notice allows for an additional 30 days for public comments.
Agency: U.S. Census Bureau, Department of Commerce.
Title: Group Quarters Advance Contact.
OMB Control Number: 0607-XXXX.
Form Number(s): Group Quarters Advance Contact Instrument--D6-QFE-
GA.
Type of Request: Regular submission. This is a new information
collection.
Number of Respondents: 600.
Average Hours per Response: 15 minutes.
Burden Hours: 150.
Needs and Uses: During the years preceding the 2030 Census, the
Census Bureau will pursue its commitment to developing a well-managed,
cost-effective, high quality decennial census. The Census Bureau will
streamline data collection processes and implement new and improved
methods to count the U.S. population for the 2030 Census. This includes
improved methods for counting individuals residing in Group Quarters
(GQs). A GQ is a place that is designed to house a group of people who
typically are nonrelatives and have similar objectives, needs, or
restrictions. These places provide care or services for the occupants
(such as supervision, health care, or other types of assistance) and/or
have certain communal facilities that are shared by the occupants (such
as communal bathrooms or kitchens). GQs include a range of
unconventional household compositions or locations such as college/
university student housing, residential treatment centers, nursing/
skilled nursing facilities, group homes, correctional facilities,
military barracks, and workers' dormitories. GQ administrators play a
vital role in data collection during Group Quarters Advance Contact
(GQAC). They provide critical updates about the facility and residents.
The 2026 Census Test GQAC will be fielded to 600 GQ facilities
across two regional census areas that encompasses six test sites in
Western Texas; Tribal Lands within Arizona; Colorado Springs, CO;
Western North Carolina; Spartanburg, SC; and Huntsville, AL. These
locations were chosen because they possess particular characteristics
that support the Census Bureau's focus on several enhancement areas for
the broader 2026 Census Test and the 2030 Census, including: making it
easier for people to respond on their own online, by phone, or by mail;
improving in-person household data collection; improving methods for
counting people living in GQs; enhancing the infrastructure that
supports census operations; and processing data concurrently with data
collection. The enhancement of GQAC data collection falls solely under
the enhancement area on improving methods for counting people living in
GQs. It will meet that goal by making it easier for GQ administrators
to provide information about the GQ, allowing them to select a method
of enumeration for the residents of the GQ, and enhancing the
infrastructure that supports census operations. The GQAC data
collection period is February 2026 through March 2026.
The 2026 Census Test GQAC will utilize the GQ Contact Frame
Maintenance system that will include the GQ facility name (linked to
the possible GQs), facility address, name of GQ administrator/primary
and secondary points of contact, phone number of contact person(s), and
email address of the contact person(s).
During the 2020 Census, GQAC was conducted with the GQ
administrator by telephone (In-Office GQAC) or a personal visit (In-
Field GQAC). For the 2026 Census Test, advance contact information will
also be collected by phone or by in-person visit(s).
The 2026 Census Test GQAC will enable the Census Bureau to contact
the GQ administrators to collect pertinent information about the GQs
such as:
<bullet> GQ type,
<bullet> Name, phone number and email of the contact person,
<bullet> Verification/updates to the GQ address the Census Bureau
has in their inventory,
<bullet> Expected population for the GQ on Census Day, April 1,
2026,
<bullet> Desired method of enumeration for their residents, and
<bullet> Depending on the enumeration method selected, the date and
time for an appointment.
During In-Office GQAC, office clerks will call the GQ administrator
(using the phone number on file for the case or researching it using
the internet) and conduct interviews while electronically collecting
responses and making entries into an instrument to verify and/or update
the GQ information and documenting their preferred enumeration method
in preparation for conducting the upcoming enumeration.
The In-Field GQAC operation will include all unresolved cases from
the In-Office GQAC. Field staff will work with GQs for which pre-
enumeration information such as contact information was not obtained.
Field staff will visit each identified GQ and conduct an in-person
interview with the GQ contact person using an electronic device to
capture the same information collected during In-Office GQAC. During
the 2020 Census and previous decennial censuses, in-field GQAC was
conducted by field staff visiting each identified GQ and collecting
response data on a paper questionnaire.
The content of the GQAC reflects topics that are required by the
GQAC operation to enable the Group Quarters Enumeration (GQE) in the
larger 2026 Census Test, which in turn will inform improvements for the
2030 Census.
[[Page 48445]]
Since the 60-day Federal Register Notice (FRN) on this proposed
collection was published, the Census Bureau needed to make a number of
changes to GQAC.
<bullet> The Census Bureau descoped the web-based GQAC for GQ
administrators from the 2026 Census Test. The Census Bureau no longer
plans to allow GQ administrators to log into a secure web-based GQAC
instrument to review, verify, and if needed, update the GQ information,
or select a method of data collection in preparation for conducting the
upcoming enumeration operations. Instead, Census Bureau office clerks
will use the same platform that had been planned for GQ administrators
to collect this information.
<bullet> Emails to GQ administrators for web-based GQAC that were
mentioned in the 60-day FRN will no longer be sent.
<bullet> Also descoped were plans to implement a process to
virtually complete the Special Sworn Status form for GQ administrators
who select the web-based GQAC. The system to track/maintain completed
Special Sworn Status forms (BC-1759) collected during the American
Community Survey and other Census Bureau web-based surveys is still in
progress because it may be needed during GQE.
<bullet> The proposed annual burden hours have decreased from the
217 hours as the Census Bureau estimated in the 60-day Federal Register
Notice for this information collection to 150 hours. The number of
respondents grew from 434 in the 60-day Federal Register notice to 600,
but the average time per response was reduced from 30 minutes to 15
minutes when the calling script was updated based on the final GQAC
specification following the submission of the 60-day FRN.
<bullet> The form number(s) indicated on the 60-day Federal
Register notice listed the numbers for the envelopes, letters, and the
confidentiality notice. This 30-day Federal Register notice removes
those numbers, and instead now only lists the form number for the
collection instrument. Other respondent materials will be available to
the public on <a href="http://RegInfo.gov">RegInfo.gov</a>. (See instructions below.)
Affected Public: Business or other for-profit organizations; Not-
for-profit institutions.
Frequency: One-time (February-March 2026).
Respondent's Obligation: Mandatory.
Legal Authority: Title 13 U.S.C. 141 and 193.
This information collection request may be viewed at
<a href="http://www.reginfo.gov">www.reginfo.gov</a>. Follow the instructions to view the Department of
Commerce collections currently under review by OMB.
Written comments and recommendations for the proposed information
collection should be submitted within 30 days of the publication of
this notice on the following website <a href="http://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain">www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain</a>.
Find this particular information collection by selecting ``Currently
under 30-day Review--Open for Public Comments'' or by using the search
function and entering the title of the collection.
Sheleen Dumas,
Departmental PRA Compliance Officer, Office of the Under Secretary for
Economic Affairs, Commerce Department.
[FR Doc. 2025-19633 Filed 10-21-25; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-07-P
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