The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has released its 2025 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure giving the nation’s infrastructure an overall ‘C’ grade. This marks an improvement over the ‘C–’ overall grade in 2021 and is the highest grade given by ASCE since it began its Report Card in 1998.
The quadrennial Report Card uses an ‘A’ to ‘F’ school report card format. The 2025 edition provides a comprehensive assessment of current infrastructure conditions and needs, evaluating 18 categories. Broadband is a new category added to this year’s report.
The individual 2025 category grades ranged from a ‘B’ for ports to a ‘D’ grade for stormwater and transit. Though some categories improved and none earning a ‘D-’ grade for the first time since 1998, nine categories still received a grade in the ‘D’ range. Eight category grades — dams, hazardous waste, inland waterways, levees, ports, public parks, roads, and transit — improved over the 2021 report. Two categories — energy and rail — received lower grades in this year’s Report Card.
The grades for each category are below:
| Grade | Categories |
| B | Ports |
| B- | Rail |
| C+ | Broadband, Solid Waste |
| C | Bridges, Hazardous Waste |
| C- | Inland Waterways, Drinking Water, Public Parks |
| D+ | Aviation, Dams, Energy, Levees, Roads, Schools, Wastewater |
| D | Stormwater, Transit |
Three overarching trends impacting infrastructure
The 2025 Report Card found three overarching trends impacting infrastructure:
1. Aging infrastructure systems are increasingly vulnerable to natural disasters and extreme weather events, creating unexpected and often avoidable risks to public safety and disrupting economic activity, ultimately hampering U.S. global competitiveness.
2. Recent federal and state investments have had a positive impact, but the full force of increased funding will take years to realize. Sustained investments are key to providing certainty and ensuring planning goes to development, as well as making larger infrastructure projects attainable.
3. Unreliable or unavailable data on key performance indicators continues to impact certain infrastructure sectors. There are still infrastructure sectors where data is scarce or unreliable.
There’s a need for sustained investments
The Report Card indicates that legislation passed by Congress since the 2021 Report Card sparked progress, but more work and investment is needed to overcome decades of underinvestment and adapt the country’s transportation networks, water systems, electric grid and broadband services to meet current and future demands.
With the 2025 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, ASCE estimates investment needs total $9.1 trillion for all 18 Report Card categories to reach a state of good repair. Public data and ASCE’s 2024 Bridging the Gap study forecast $5.4 trillion in public and private investments in the 10-year period, 2024 through 2033, if Congress continues recent funding levels. This leaves a gap of $3.7 trillion in investments for America’s infrastructure if investing at current funding levels is maintained.
“We have seen the difference investment can make in improving infrastructure,” said Feniosky Peña-Mora, 2025 ASCE President. “After releasing this report eight times, this is the first time for a ‘C’ grade, the highest ever awarded. While this showcases that investment leads to direct results, the job is not yet done. As the Report Card makes clear, there is still a great need for sustained investments. Delaying upgrades to our nation’s roads, bridges, transit and utilities will cost families and businesses time and money, in addition to creating unsafe yet often avoidable situations.”
The report underscores the essential need for lawmakers to maintain existing levels of federal infrastructure investment and increase participation from state and local governments and the private sector, to reduce costs for American households and bolster economic growth.
“Every American household or business immediately feels the impact of just one inefficiency or failure in our built environment,” said Darren Olson, 2025 Report Card Chair, ASCE. “However, if we maintain investments, each American household can save $700 per year. Better infrastructure is an efficient investment of taxpayer dollars that results in a stronger economy and prioritizes American jobs, resilience and connectivity.”