Just a tiny portion of the population flies on private jets, but those jets make an outsize impact on the planet. And though most Americans don’t fly private, they’re helping subsidize those flights through their taxes.
That’s according to a new report by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), which details these consequences and what it calls the “high cost of private jet excess.”
When it comes to climate effects, private jets are particularly polluting. A passenger on a private jet is responsible for up to 14 times the emissions as someone on a commercial flight.
And because private jets fly at higher altitudes, their exhaust creates contrails that are especially good at trapping heat and warming the planet. This climate effect can be two to four times greater than the impact of the planes’ carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions alone.
Land of the free, home of the jets
Though the U.S. is home to just 4% of the world’s population, the report notes, it’s the site of nearly two-thirds of the world’s registered private jets: 65% of all private jet operations take place in American airports.
This means U.S. private jet flights contribute more than half (55%) of the global greenhouse gas emissions produced by private jets.
These jet owners don’t pay their fair share of taxes, IPS argues. Noncommercial private jets account for 7% of the country’s airspace activity. Yet they contribute less than 0.6% of the taxes that go into the Airport and Airway Trust Fund, which helps finance the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
Private jet owners also get the benefit of public infrastructure funding. More than a third of all airport infrastructure grants awarded through 2026 went to airport projects that may primarily benefit private jets. Part of a program created by the Biden administration’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, that funding comes to more than $1.13 billion.
Private jet owners may get an even bigger pass on taxes soon. The Airspace Location and Enhanced Risk Transparency (ALERT) Act, which passed in the House of Representatives in April, is focused on aviation safety. Included in the bill, though, is a provision that would make it easier for private jet owners to avoid paying state and local taxes on those aircrafts. (That bill has not yet passed in the Senate.)
The unequal skies
IPS often highlights wealth inequality across the country. And the problem of private jets is tied to that inequality, the report highlights.
About 256,000 people, or 0.003% of the global population, fly on private jets. The combined net worth of that group, per the report, is $31 trillion, with an average of $123 million each.
That figure includes those who are fractional private jet owners, a system in which people buy shares of a jet so they get a certain amount of guaranteed flight hours without having to purchase an entire aircraft.
Fractional private jet ownership is a booming business: Between 2019 and 2025, this kind of ownership increased 65%. In the first six months of 2026 alone, NetJets, a fractional jet service that’s wholly owned by Berkshire Hathaway, reported a 15.5% year-over-year revenue increase.
“The rest of us should not have to pay for the luxury excess of the private jet billionaire class,” the report’s coauthor, Chuck Collins, said in a statement. “Our hard-earned tax dollars shouldn’t subsidize their reckless air travel habits that further harm our warming planet.”
Alongside the report, IPS launched a Private Jet Emissions Tracker, which measures the emissions of specific private flights out of specific locations, and at certain times, such as those tied to the Super Bowl or Kentucky Derby.
The tracker was piloted for the 2026 World Cup. It found that over 92,000 private flights flew to and from host cities around match days, contributing almost 150 kilotons of excess CO2 emissions—the equivalent of driving more than 34,000 cars for a year.
