Data as of 2026-07-22
Independent tracking · Not an official Economic Forum publication
Nevada Economic Forum Forecast Tracker
Every two years, five appointed panelists forecast how much money the State of Nevada will collect in General Fund revenue — and by law, the Legislature cannot budget a dollar more than that number. This page tracks what the Economic Forum predicted against what the state actually collected, cycle by cycle, sourced entirely to primary documents.
Latest governing forecast (2025-27 biennium)
$12.24B
Adopted 2025-05-01
Most recent closed year (FY2025) vs. forecast
-0.3%
Actual came in slightly under forecast
Average absolute forecast miss
15.8%
Over 4 cycles with a completed, verified biennium actual
Forecast cycles verified
6
2020-12-03 through 2025-05-01
Forecast vs. actual, by biennium
Each Economic Forum cycle sets or revises a binding forecast for a two-year "biennium" (named for the Legislative session that adopted it). December sets the initial number; May revises it mid-session. Where the biennium has since closed, we show the verified actual total and how far off the forecast was.
| Biennium | Meeting | Forecast (after credits) | Actual (after credits) | Difference | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-23 FY2022 + FY2023 | December (initial) — 2020-12-03 | $8.51B | $11.20B | +31.7% | |
| May (revised) — 2021-05-04 | $9.09B | +23.2% | |||
| 2023-25 FY2024 + FY2025 | December (initial) — 2022-12-05 | $11.43B | $12.02B | +5.2% | |
| May (revised) — 2023-05-01 | $11.64B | +3.3% | |||
| 2025-27 FY2026 + FY2027 | December (initial) — 2024-12-02 | $12.43B | — | — | |
| May (revised) — 2025-05-01 | $12.24B | — |
Actual figures verified against: FY2021 actual; FY2022 actual; FY2023 actual; FY2024 actual; FY2025 actual. 2025-27 biennium actual is blank because FY2026 and FY2027 have not yet closed.
Trend: governing forecast vs. actual, by fiscal year
For each fiscal year, this chart uses the most recent forecast the Forum had adopted before that year closed (typically the May revision made during the relevant legislative session) — the number closest to what actually governed that year's budget.
Text summary of this chart
General Fund revenue, forecast (most recent pre-close forecast) vs. actual, by fiscal year, in billions of dollars after tax credits:
- FY2021: forecast $4.34B, actual $4.47B.
- FY2022: forecast $4.40B, actual $5.44B.
- FY2023: forecast $5.72B, actual $5.76B.
- FY2024: forecast $5.74B, actual $6.01B.
- FY2025: forecast $6.03B, actual $6.01B.
- FY2026: forecast $6.04B, actual not yet closed.
- FY2027: forecast $6.21B, actual not yet closed.
Every cycle we verified
| Meeting date | Type | Biennium forecast | Context | Source PDF |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-12-03 | December (initial) | $8.51B (2021-23) | First forecast of the pandemic era. Nevada's economy had just endured a record 30%+ monthly unemployment rate and casino shutdowns. The Forum assumed only modest growth for 2021-23, citing uncertainty over further COVID-19 outbreaks, vaccine timing, and federal stimulus. Actual collections would go on to far exceed this forecast. | |
| 2021-05-04 | May (revised) | $9.09B (2021-23) | First revision after the pandemic-era forecast. Vaccine rollout was underway and Las Vegas casinos had reopened, but the Forum still projected only moderate growth — it did not yet see the scale of the tourism and gaming rebound that would hit later that fiscal year. | |
| 2022-12-05 | December (initial) | $11.43B (2023-25) | First forecast after two years of extraordinary post-pandemic revenue growth (FY2022 collections beat the prior forecast by over $1 billion). Facing 8%+ inflation and Fed rate hikes, the Forum expected that growth to moderate substantially for 2023-25. | |
| 2023-05-01 | May (revised) | $11.64B (2023-25) | Mid-session revision, built during the 2023 Legislative Session. The Forum's own comparison table shows actual FY2023 collections would still exceed even this forecast, and actual FY2024 collections would exceed it by over $260 million — boosted by one-off events (Formula 1, Super Bowl LVIII, the Sphere's opening) that drove record Las Vegas tourism spending. | |
| 2024-12-02 | December (initial) | $12.43B (2025-27) | First forecast for the 2025-27 biennium. Set 4.0% above the (then-current) 2023-25 biennium, reflecting expectations of cooling — but still positive — tourism and gaming growth as national inflation moderated. | |
| 2025-05-01 | May (revised) | $12.24B (2025-27) | The Legislature's governing forecast for the 2025-27 biennium, adopted mid-session. Nevada Independent and This Is Reno both reported this as the first mid-session downward revision since 2009 — the Forum cut the FY2025-27 outlook by roughly $191 million versus the December 2024 forecast, citing a slowing national economy. |
Methodology and limitations
What the Economic Forum is. Created by Senate Bill 23 of the 1993 Legislative Session (codified at NRS 353.226–353.228), the Economic Forum is a 5-member panel of private-sector economists, business people, and tax specialists. By December 3 of each even-numbered year it adopts a forecast of unrestricted State General Fund revenue for the coming biennium; by May 1 of the following (odd-numbered) year, during the legislative session, it revises that forecast if needed. Neither the Governor's proposed budget nor the Legislature's enacted budget may assume General Fund revenue above the Forum's most recent adopted number — it is a statutory ceiling, not guidance.
How this table was built. We fetched and read the Forum's own "Forecast of Future State Revenues" PDF report for each cycle listed above, directly from the Nevada Legislature's Fiscal Division website. Each report includes both the newly adopted forecast and a restated table of actual collections for the two or three most recently closed fiscal years — so a single report often verifies both a forecast and an earlier actual. For the most recently closed year (FY2025), we additionally verified the actual against the Governor's Finance Office's own "Silver Sage" end-of-fiscal-year report, published September 25, 2025, which explicitly reconciles FY2025 actual collections against the Forum's May 2025 forecast.
Scope. We verified 6 forecast cycles, from 2020-12-03 through 2025-05-01. Cycles before December 2020 (2015-2020, roughly 10 additional December/May meetings) were not verified this session and are intentionally omitted — we did not fetch and read those source PDFs, so we do not publish forecast figures for them. The Legislature's Fiscal Division lists reports back to 2000 at https://www.leg.state.nv.us/Division/Fiscal/Economic%20Forum/ for anyone who wants to extend this dataset.
Limitations. Actuals for the 2025-27 biennium (FY2026 and FY2027) are not yet available — those fiscal years have not closed. The "average absolute forecast miss" statistic above is computed over only 4 forecast cycles spanning 2 fully closed bienniums, both of which fell across the COVID-19 pandemic and its unusually volatile recovery — a small sample that is very likely not representative of the Forum's accuracy in calmer economic periods. We did not compute, estimate, or interpolate any forecast or actual figure ourselves; every number traces to a specific document linked above.
For more on the Forum itself, see What Is the Economic Forum?. For how this forecast feeds into the state's spending plan, see Nevada State Budget. For a breakdown of the tax categories the Forum forecasts, see Nevada Revenue Sources. For the broader economic backdrop — jobs, GDP, gaming win — see Nevada Economy Dashboard.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Nevada Economic Forum?
It is a 5-member panel of private-sector economists and business people, created by NRS 353.226 (Senate Bill 23, 1993 Session). Twice per biennium — December of even years and May of odd years — the Forum adopts an official forecast of unrestricted State General Fund revenue for the next two fiscal years.
Is the Economic Forum's forecast binding?
Yes. By statute, the Governor's proposed budget and the Legislature's final budget cannot assume General Fund revenue higher than the Forum's most recent forecast. It functions as a hard ceiling, not an estimate the Legislature can override — a structural check the state adopted after budget shortfalls in the early 1990s.
How accurate has the Economic Forum been?
Across the 4 forecast cycles we verified with a fully closed-out biennium to compare against (December 2020, May 2021, December 2022, and May 2023), the Forum's forecasts missed the eventual actual collections by an average of 15.8% in absolute terms — almost always on the low side, i.e. actual collections came in higher than forecast. Most of that miss traces to the extraordinary, hard-to-predict post-pandemic tourism and gaming boom of FY2022–FY2024. The most recent fully closed fiscal year, FY2025, tells a different story: the May 2025 forecast missed actual collections by only 0.3%.
What is the difference between the December and May forecasts?
The December forecast (adopted by December 3 of even-numbered years) is what the Governor uses to build the proposed Executive Budget. The May forecast (adopted by May 1 of odd-numbered years, during the legislative session) is a binding revision the Legislature uses to finalize the actual budget it passes. Historically the May revision has tracked closer to the eventual actual than the December forecast that preceded it, per our data above.
Where do these numbers come from?
Every figure on this page was read directly from a Nevada Legislature Fiscal Division "Forecast of Future State Revenues" PDF, or from the Governor's Finance Office "Silver Sage" end-of-year revenue report — both linked per row in the table above and in the methodology section below. We did not estimate, extrapolate, or reconstruct any number from memory.