Following America’s Taxpayer Dollars in Afghanistan: What We Found. What We Can’t Be Verified. Why It Still Matters.

An Open The Books Investigation

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Executive Summary

Five years after the United States withdrew from Afghanistan, one question continues to surface among taxpayers: Did America continue sending billions of dollars into Afghanistan after the Taliban returned to power?

One frequently repeated claim is that the United States sends $40 million every week directly to the Taliban. Rather than repeat or dismiss that claim, Open the Books reviewed the public record to answer three questions: How much taxpayer money actually entered Afghanistan after the August 2021 withdrawal? Who received and administered those funds? Can taxpayers independently verify where the money ultimately ended up?

Our review found that the commonly cited $20.705 billion associated with Afghanistan after the withdrawal does not represent money that flowed into Afghanistan alone. SIGAR’s July 30, 2024, accounting combined $2.967 billion in Afghanistan assistance through June 30, 2024; $8.704 billion made available for Operation Allies Welcome; $5.533 billion made available for Enduring Welcome; and $3.5 billion in Afghan central bank assets transferred to the Fund for the Afghan People. (1)

The post-withdrawal Afghanistan assistance figure later increased. SIGAR’s Oct. 30, 2024, quarterly report put assistance made available for Afghanistan at nearly $3.33 billion through the end of Fiscal Year 2024, including roughly $2.43 billion in humanitarian assistance. (2)

Those dollars supported food assistance, health care, refugee services, agriculture, education and humanitarian relief through international organizations and non-governmental partners operating under difficult conditions. Yet following those taxpayer dollars beyond the initial award becomes increasingly difficult.

One implementing partner interviewed by SIGAR estimated that only 30% to 40% of donor funding reached intended beneficiaries directly. The balance included operating costs as well as taxes, fees, bribery, extortion and other costs associated with delivering aid in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. That estimate was not a government-wide audit finding and should not be interpreted to mean that 60% to 70% of U.S. aid went to the Taliban. (3)

Five years after the withdrawal, taxpayers can identify much of the money made available for Afghanistan and many of the organizations involved. What they still cannot do is follow every taxpayer dollar from federal funding to final use. That missing ledger is the central accountability issue examined in this report.

What We Found

•  $20.705 billion was the broad SIGAR total as of June 30, 2024, but it combined Afghanistan assistance, U.S. resettlement and relocation programs, and Afghan central bank assets.
•  Post-withdrawal Afghanistan assistance reached nearly $3.33 billion through Sept. 30, 2024.
•  $8.704 billion was made available for Operation Allies Welcome, supporting Afghan evacuees resettling in the United States.
•  $5.533 billion was made available for Enduring Welcome, the successor relocation and resettlement effort.
•  $3.5 billion represented Afghan central bank assets transferred to the Fund for the Afghan People in Switzerland, not newly appropriated U.S. foreign aid.
•  SIGAR documented at least $10.9 million in taxes, fees, duties and utilities paid by U.S.-funded implementing partners to Taliban-controlled entities.
•  One implementing partner estimated only 30% to 40% of donor funds reached intended beneficiaries directly, illustrating the difficulty of tracing aid through the delivery system.

The Question We Set Out to Answer

Five years after the fall of Kabul, one question continues to surface in congressional hearings, television interviews and across social media: Is the United States still sending millions of taxpayer dollars to Afghanistan every week? More specifically, Americans have repeatedly heard the claim that the United States sends $40 million every week to the Taliban.

The claim is simple. The reality is not.

Open the Books did not set out to prove or disprove a social media narrative. We set out to answer a more fundamental question: Where did taxpayer dollars actually go after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan?

The “$40 million” claim is tied in part to a U.N. cash-shipment mechanism that moved physical U.S. currency into Afghanistan for humanitarian operations. SIGAR found that these shipments were funded through a pooled, multi-donor system and that the U.S.-specific share of the cash could not be isolated. (4)

To answer the broader spending question, we reviewed SIGAR quarterly reports and audits, State Department and USAID records, ForeignAssistance.gov data, United Nations reporting and other publicly available government documents.

The public debate often combines very different categories of spending into one headline number.

Accountability begins by separating the dollars that funded programs inside Afghanistan from money used for relocation and resettlement or held outside the country.

The $20.705 Billion Headline — What It Really Represents

At first glance, $20.705 billion sounds as though the United States sent more than $20 billion into Afghanistan after the Taliban returned to power. That is not what SIGAR’s figure represents.

SIGAR’s July 30, 2024, quarterly report described $20.705 billion as funds “appropriated or otherwise made available” for Afghanistan and Afghan refugees since the 2021 withdrawal. Table I.1, on report page 5 / PDF page 10, breaks the total into four principal buckets.(5)

The $8.704 billion for Operation Allies Welcome supported Afghan evacuees resettling in the United States.

SIGAR said that amount included approximately $5.36 billion for the Department of Defense, $3 billion for the Department of Health and Human Services, and $284 million for the Department of Homeland Security. (6)

Another $5.533 billion was made available for Enduring Welcome, the whole-of-government successor to Operation Allies Welcome. SIGAR reported that the State Department had obligated $3.46 billion of that amount as of June 30, 2024. (7)

The $3.5 billion Afghan Fund is different still. It consists of Afghan central bank assets transferred to the Fund for the Afghan People and held in Switzerland. These are not newly appropriated U.S. foreign-aid dollars. (8)

The remaining $2.967 billion was Afghanistan assistance through June 30, 2024. By Sept. 30, 2024, SIGAR’s updated quarterly report placed post-withdrawal Afghanistan assistance at nearly $3.33 billion. (9)

For this report, $3.33 billion through the end of FY2024 is the cleanest figure for post-withdrawal Afghanistan assistance. The higher $3.7 billion to $3.8 billion figures found in some other sources use different scopes or later reporting periods and should not be blended into the SIGAR total.

Following the Money

Once the broader $20.705 billion figure is separated into its component parts, the next question is more difficult: Who actually received the assistance that went into Afghanistan?

The answer is not the Taliban, nor is it a single United Nations agency. U.S. taxpayer dollars moved through a network of international organizations, non-governmental organizations, contractors and implementing partners responsible for delivering food, medical care, shelter, agricultural assistance, education and other humanitarian services.

Where federal reports identify specific recipients by name, the U.N. World Food Programme stands out. SIGAR reporting cited approximately $422 million for WFP in FY2023 and a further $280 million tranche in FY2024. (10)

The larger challenge is that public reporting does not always provide the same organization-by-organization detail. Programs may be announced jointly, with multiple implementing partners named but no public allocation showing how much each ultimately managed.

A Missing Ledger

Government agencies can identify many of the organizations responsible for delivering humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan. What the public record often cannot provide is a complete organization-by- organization accounting of how much taxpayer funding each ultimately received and managed.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees illustrates the problem. UNHCR appears repeatedly in State Department, USAID and SIGAR reporting as a humanitarian partner, but many announcements group UNHCR with other organizations rather than disclosing an agency-specific allocation.

For example, UNHCR was included in a March 2022 joint humanitarian announcement and later appeared in a FY2024 joint obligation with other U.N. agencies. Our review identified a $12 million standalone UNHCR tranche in SIGAR’s July 2024 reporting, but the broader public record does not provide a simple annual ledger for the organization. (11)

That does not establish wrongdoing by UNHCR or any other implementing partner. It establishes a transparency limitation: taxpayers can often identify the organizations involved but cannot always reconstruct how much each organization administered across multiple awards and fiscal years.

Where Did the Other 60% to 70% Go?

Perhaps the most important finding in this review is not a dollar figure but a question: What happens to taxpayer dollars after they enter Afghanistan?

In SIGAR’s lessons-learned work on delivering U.S. assistance in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, one implementing partner estimated that only 30% to 40% of donor funds reached the intended population directly. The estimate was anecdotal, not an audited government-wide percentage, but SIGAR included it as evidence of the costs and vulnerabilities embedded in the aid-delivery system. (12)

The remaining share can include legitimate operating expenses — security, transportation, warehousing, staffing, banking and currency exchange — as well as taxes, customs duties, utility payments, fees, bribery, extortion and other payments imposed in the operating environment.

The estimate should not be converted into a claim that 60% to 70% of U.S. aid went to the Taliban. SIGAR could not make that finding, and neither can this report.

What SIGAR could document was at least $10.9 million in taxes, fees, duties and utility payments made by U.S.-funded implementing partners to Taliban-controlled entities. SIGAR also warned that the amount was likely understated because reporting did not capture every payment. (13)

The accountability problem is therefore not that every untraced dollar can be labeled diversion. It is that federal oversight cannot produce a complete end-to-end ledger separating legitimate delivery costs from all payments that benefited Taliban-controlled authorities.

The Pipeline Closed — But So Did the Watchdog

The story of U.S. assistance to Afghanistan did not continue indefinitely. In 2025, the Trump administration froze foreign assistance pending review, and the Afghanistan aid pipeline contracted sharply. SIGAR later reported widespread termination of awards with activities in Afghanistan. (14)

The funding shutdown changed the scale of the issue, but it did not answer the historical accounting questions. How much reached intended beneficiaries? How much was consumed by operating costs? How much ultimately benefited Taliban-controlled authorities?

The closure of SIGAR in January 2026 created a second change. For more than 15 years, SIGAR had served as Congress’ dedicated independent watchdog for Afghanistan spending. Much of the public record used in this report — quarterly funding totals, audits, evaluations and implementing-partner findings — came from SIGAR.

With SIGAR gone, future Afghanistan-related spending may still appear in agency records and broader oversight mechanisms, but the centralized, independent reporting that allowed Congress, journalists and taxpayers to follow these programs over time no longer exists.

Bottom Line: Five Years Later

Five years after the United States withdrew from Afghanistan, several conclusions emerge from the public record.

First, the widely cited $20.705 billion figure is real, but it does not represent money that flowed into Afghanistan alone. SIGAR’s accounting combined Afghanistan assistance, Operation Allies Welcome, Enduring Welcome and Afghan central bank assets held in the Fund for the Afghan People.

Second, the cleanest SIGAR figure for post-withdrawal Afghanistan assistance through the end of FY2024 is nearly $3.33 billion — not a $3.3 billion to $3.7 billion range.

Third, federal reporting identifies many of the organizations administering humanitarian programs but does not always provide an organization-by-organization ledger showing how funding moved through every layer of the delivery system.

Fourth, SIGAR documented payments to Taliban-controlled entities through taxes, fees, duties and utilities, while also finding that the full extent of those payments could not be determined.

Finally, this review found no support for reducing the post-withdrawal spending story to a single slogan. The public record shows a more complicated system in which billions of dollars supported humanitarian operations, international organizations administered those programs, operating costs consumed significant resources, and some payments benefited Taliban-controlled authorities.

Five years later, many questions can be answered with confidence. Others cannot — because the public record remains incomplete.

For taxpayers, accountability depends on more than knowing what government made available. It depends on maintaining the ability to follow public funds from federal authorization to final use. That remains the unfinished story of America’s post-withdrawal spending in Afghanistan.

Methodology and Source Note

This analysis relies principally on reports of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, supplemented by State Department, USAID, ForeignAssistance.gov, United Nations and contemporaneous

news reporting. Where sources use different scopes — including appropriated, made-available, obligated and disbursed funds — this report does not treat those terms as interchangeable. The $20.705 billion breakdown uses SIGAR’s July 30, 2024, Table I.1. The $3.33 billion post-withdrawal Afghanistan-assistance figure uses SIGAR’s Oct. 30, 2024, update through the end of FY2024. Because SIGAR’s original website has been intermittently unavailable, footnotes include preserved copies hosted by GlobalSecurity and indexed copies on ReliefWeb where available.

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(1) SIGAR, Quarterly Report to the United States Congress, July 30, 2024, Table I.1, report p. 5 / PDF p. 10. Preserved copy: https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/sigar/sigar-report-2024-07-30.pdf

(2) SIGAR, Quarterly Report to the United States Congress, Oct. 30, 2024, reporting nearly $3.33 billion in post-withdrawal Afghanistan assistance through Sept. 30, 2024, including roughly $2.43 billion in humanitarian assistance. Preserved copy: https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/sigar/sigar-report-2024-10-30.pdf

ReliefWeb index: https://reliefweb.int/report/afghanistan/sigar-october-2024-quarterly-report-united-states-congress

(3) SIGAR, A Broken Aid System: Delivering U.S. Assistance to Taliban-Controlled Afghanistan, lessons-learned report, discussing an implementing partner estimate that 30%-40% of donor funds reached the intended population and describing taxes, fees, bribery, extortion and other delivery costs. Original SIGAR file: https://www.sigar.mil/Portals/147/Files/Reports/lessons-learned/SIGAR-25- 29-LL.pdf

(4) SIGAR, U.S. Cash Shipments to Afghanistan, Evaluation 24-12, Jan. 2024. SIGAR found the U.N. cash mechanism pooled donor funds and did not permit isolation of a U.S.-specific share. Original file: https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/evaluations/SIGAR-24-12-IP.pdf ; related coverage: https://www.propublica.org/article/united-nations-cash-afghanistan-following-taliban-takeover

(5) SIGAR, Quarterly Report, July 30, 2024, Table I.1, report p. 5 / PDF p. 10.
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/sigar/sigar-report-2024-07-30.pdf

(6) SIGAR, Quarterly Report, July 30, 2024, report pp. 5-6, explaining Operation Allies Welcome and its agency components. https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/sigar/sigar-report-2024-07-30.pdf

(7) SIGAR, Quarterly Report, July 30, 2024, report pp. 5-6, describing $5.533 billion made available for Enduring Welcome and State Department obligations as of June 30, 2024. https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/sigar/sigar-report-2024-07-
30.pdf

(8) SIGAR, Quarterly Report, July 30, 2024, Table I.1 and accompanying text, on the $3.5 billion Fund for the Afghan People. https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/sigar/sigar-report-2024-07-30.pdf ; AP coverage: https://apnews.com/article/afghanistan-taliban-us-funding-1cc24e818172c03573a63dfb52375842

(9) SIGAR, Quarterly Report, Oct. 30, 2024, updating post-withdrawal Afghanistan assistance to nearly $3.33 billion through Sept. 30, https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/sigar/sigar-report-2024-10-30.pdf

(10) SIGAR quarterly reporting on U.S. humanitarian assistance and World Food Programme awards; see July and October 2024 quarterly reports. https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/sigar/sigar-report-2024-10-30.pdf

(11) SIGAR, Quarterly Report, July 30, 2024, reporting on U.N. implementing partners including UNHCR and a $12 million UNHCR tranche. https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/sigar/sigar-report-2024-07-30.pdf

(12) SIGAR, A Broken Aid System: Delivering U.S. Assistance to Taliban-Controlled Afghanistan, lessons-learned report. https://www.sigar.mil/Portals/147/Files/Reports/lessons-learned/SIGAR-25-29-LL.pdf ; Reuters coverage: https://www.reuters.com/world/taliban-use-force-divert-international-aid-us-watchdog-says-2025-08-13

(13) SIGAR, U.S. Funds Benefitting the Taliban-Controlled Government: Implementing Partners Paid at Least $10.9 Million, Audit 24-22-AR. Original report page: https://www.sigar.mil/Reports/Article-Display/Article/3994562/us-funds-benefitting-the-taliban-controlled- government-implementing-partners-pa/ ; AP coverage: https://apnews.com/article/b3234372a0e80e6e9fadb04b3b1b06df

(14) SIGAR reporting on the 2025 foreign-assistance freeze and termination of Afghanistan awards; see later SIGAR quarterly/lessons-learned reporting and Congressional Research Service, Afghanistan: Background and U.S. Policy In Brief: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R45122