How Much Do Private Prisons Make and Where Does the Money Go

The two largest publicly traded private prison companies in the United States brought in more than $4.5 billion combined in 2025, and the question of how much private prisons make is answered almost entirely by government contracts. GEO Group reported full-year 2025 revenue of $2.63 billion and net income of $254.4 million, a nearly eightfold jump in profit over 2024.¹ CoreCivic posted fourth-quarter revenue of $604 million alone, up 26 percent year over year, with Q4 net income of $26.5 million.² Both companies grew sharply in 2025 as immigration detention expanded.

The Top-Line Numbers for 2025

GEO Group is the larger of the two. Its 2025 revenue of $2.63 billion was up from $2.42 billion in 2024, and net income attributable to GEO climbed from about $32 million in 2024 to $254.4 million in 2025.¹ That works out to a net profit margin of roughly 9.7 percent for the year. S&P Global forecasts GEO’s 2026 revenue at approximately $2.71 billion.³

CoreCivic’s Q4 2025 revenue of $604 million was 26 percent higher than the same quarter a year earlier, with Q4 net income up 38 percent to $26.5 million.² Its Q4 net margin ran roughly 4.4 percent, thinner than GEO’s, but its top line grew faster. Both companies trade on the New York Stock Exchange — GEO under ticker GEO, CoreCivic under CXW — so their finances appear in SEC filings every quarter.

Margins fluctuate for reasons that matter when comparing years. Facility activation costs, interest payments on corporate debt, and how quickly beds fill after a new contract begins all move the number. When detention demand jumps and a company already has idle capacity, new detainees generate revenue with little added cost, which is why GEO’s 2025 profit expanded so much faster than its revenue. A structural note on taxes: both companies were organized as Real Estate Investment Trusts until CoreCivic revoked its REIT election effective January 1, 2021, and GEO followed for its fiscal year ending December 31, 2021.⁴⁵ They now pay corporate income tax, which affects reported net margins.

Where the Money Comes From

Nearly every dollar starts with a contract between a private operator and a government agency. The three biggest federal customers are the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the U.S. Marshals Service, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. State departments of corrections also buy detention capacity from private operators. The dominant customer today is ICE: more than 70 percent of people held in immigration detention are in privately operated facilities.⁶

The payment mechanism is a per diem: the government pays a set dollar amount for every person held each day.⁷ That daily rate covers housing, food, supervision, and basic medical care. Rates vary by facility security level, geography, and the agency’s requirements. Bureau of Prisons figures from FY 2022, the most recent published, put the average total daily cost at privately operated federal institutions at about $93 per person, with residential reentry centers averaging roughly $126.⁸ ICE detention per diem rates can run higher depending on the facility and services provided.

The scale of federal spending shapes what the industry can capture. The FY 2026 Homeland Security appropriations bill caps ICE’s detention spending at $3.8 billion, $114 million below the FY 2025 level.⁹ Separately, ICE has outlined plans to grow detention capacity from roughly 70,000 beds to 92,600 by the end of 2026, a $38.5 billion project funded through separate legislation. As of early February 2026, ICE held approximately 68,289 detainees. Every one of those beds generates a daily payment.

Revenue Streams Beyond the Cell

Running facilities is still the core business, but both major operators have built service lines that produce income outside the per diem model.

Electronic Monitoring and Community Supervision

GEO Group’s electronic monitoring and supervision segment accounts for roughly 13 percent of company revenue, covering ankle-bracelet monitoring, evidence-based supervision, and treatment services for parolees, probationers, and pretrial defendants.³ On projected 2026 revenue of $2.71 billion, that would translate to roughly $350 million. GEO plans about $100 million in 2026 capital spending in this segment. Individuals under GPS monitoring typically pay daily fees themselves, ranging from $5 to $40.

Detainee Transportation

GEO’s subsidiary GEO Transport Inc. is the largest provider of ground and air transportation for ICE. GEO has projected that increased removal flights could add $40 million to $50 million in annual revenue for the transport subsidiary alone. Companies that already hold detention contracts have an obvious advantage in winning the movement work between facilities and to deportation flights.

Residential Reentry

Both companies operate halfway houses and reentry programs for people leaving federal custody. These carry a higher federal per diem — about $126 per person in FY 2022, compared with $93 at a privately run prison — because of the added programming and services.⁸

Fees Paid by Incarcerated People and Their Families

A separate revenue stream comes directly from the people in custody. Commissary stores inside facilities sell snacks, hygiene items, and supplies at markups documented as high as 600 percent above retail, with the operator or facility collecting a commission on sales. Deposit fees on money families send in can run from $3 to $11 or more. Phone and video-visit providers, often the sole vendor at a facility, charge per-minute rates well above market. Medical copayments for sick calls range from a few dollars to over $13 in some systems. None of this shows up in the companies’ headline revenue from government contracts, but it is a meaningful stream that falls hardest on the lowest-income families.

Occupancy Guarantees Protect the Revenue

A common contract feature makes the revenue less sensitive to actual incarceration levels. Occupancy guarantees, sometimes called bed quotas, require the government to pay for a minimum share of a facility’s capacity whether those beds are filled or not. A review of private prison contracts found roughly 65 percent contained these clauses, with guaranteed rates between 80 and 100 percent and many clustering around 90 percent.

The effect is direct. If a state contracts for a 1,000-bed facility with a 90 percent guarantee, taxpayers pay for 900 beds every day regardless of how many people are actually there. When crime rates fall or sentencing reforms pass, daily payments keep flowing. The clauses also make exit expensive: governments seeking to reduce their use of a private facility face termination fees and ongoing obligations under multi-year contracts.

What Moves the Numbers Up or Down

Nothing has shaped recent results more than federal policy. On January 26, 2021, President Biden signed Executive Order 14006, directing the Department of Justice to phase out its reliance on privately operated criminal detention facilities.¹⁰ Stock prices for both companies dropped sharply, and the federal side of the business looked threatened.

On January 20, 2025, President Trump revoked that order.¹¹ The revocation, combined with a large expansion of immigration enforcement, sent GEO’s revenue up 9 percent and its net income up nearly 700 percent in a single year.¹ CoreCivic’s Q4 2025 revenue rose 26 percent year over year.²

The direction for 2026 depends on how quickly capacity grows. ICE’s plan to reach 92,600 beds by the end of 2026 represents roughly a 32 percent increase over the 70,000 beds available in early 2025. With more than 70 percent of ICE detainees already in private facilities, most of that expansion is expected to flow to GEO Group, CoreCivic, and their competitors. The FY 2026 appropriations bill caps ICE detention at $3.8 billion through the standard budget process, but supplemental funding through separate legislation could push total spending well past that figure.⁹ For an industry whose revenue tracks how many people the government chooses to detain, the environment heading into 2026 is unusually favorable.

1
The GEO Group, Inc. The GEO Group Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Results
2
CoreCivic, Inc. CoreCivic Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Financial Results
3
S&P Global Ratings. Research Update: The GEO Group Inc. Upgraded To BB- On Debt Reduction And Industry Tailwinds; Outlook Positive
4
CoreCivic, Inc. CoreCivic Announces Change in Corporate Structure and New Capital
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The GEO Group, Inc. The GEO Group Announces Change in Corporate Structure
6
Stanford Law Review. Privatized Detention and Immigration Federalism
7
U.S. Marshals Service. USM-243 Cost Sheet for Detention Services
8
Bureau of Prisons. Federal Prison System Per Capita Costs FY 2022 Summary
9
Senate Appropriations Committee. FY26 Homeland Security Conference Bill Summary
10
The American Presidency Project. Executive Order 14006 – Reforming Our Incarceration System To Eliminate the Use of Privately Operated Criminal Detention Facilities
11
The White House. Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions