Alaska residents wait in line to receive assistance with their Permanent Fund Dividend applications at the PFD office in downtown Anchorage on March 27, 2024. (Bill Roth / ADN)
Alaskans have until Tuesday, March 31, to file for their 2026 Alaska Permanent Fund dividend.
Online filers have until 11:59 p.m. Alaska time on Tuesday to turn in their application, while mailed applications must be postmarked no later than March 31. Additional information and a link to the online application is available at pfd.alaska.gov.
Eligibility requirements for the annual dividend include having resided in Alaska during all of the previous calendar year, not being convicted of or incarcerated for a felony, and not traveling out of the state for more than 180 days, except for certain allowable absences.
The size of this year’s dividend likely won’t be known until the end of the legislative session in May as state lawmakers craft the annual spending plan.
Since 2017, the size of Permanent Fund dividend has been determined through an annual debate in the Alaska Legislature. The amount hasn’t followed the dividend formula set in state statute since 2016, with a growing portion of Permanent Fund earnings used to pay for state services amid dwindling oil revenue.
By Monday, more than 578,000 Alaskans had already applied for the dividend, according to the Alaska Department of Revenue.
The number of dividend recipients peaked in 2011, when nearly 645,000 Alaskans received the annual payment. The figure has been gradually declining since then.
Just under 619,000 Alaskans received the $1,000 dividend last year. Adjusting for inflation, last year’s payment was the smallest in the program’s history.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy again asked lawmakers to follow the existing statute for calculating this year’s payment. If lawmakers follow Dunleavy’s request, every eligible Alaskan would receive a payment of roughly $3,650, at a cost to the state of more than $2.2 billion, requiring a draw of more than $1 billion from state savings to cover the payments while maintaining basic government services.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have said a dividend of that size is untenable this year.
Longtime finance committee members in the House and Senate say that Alaskans can expect a payment similar in size to the one approved last year, despite a projection of higher oil revenue due to the war in Iran.
