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L2 has released its September 2026 National Consumer File update, incorporating the latest changes from across our standard data sources while introducing several significant enhancements.
The updated file includes 264.9 million individuals and 800 fields covering demographics, contact information, property ownership, consumer characteristics, digital identifiers and hundreds of additional attributes. As part of this release, L2 updated existing characteristics, added new records, removed records identified as deceased and refreshed address information nationwide.
This release also introduces four major improvements: L2 Media Market Areas, expanded veteran identification, substantially improved birth date coverage and millions of additional likely homeowners.
L2 Media Market Areas Replace Nielsen DMAs
After many years of licensing Nielsen Designated Market Area data, L2 was informed that record-level DMA assignments could no longer be included in data files. Similar restrictions applied to other commercial market products we evaluated.
Rather than remove market-level targeting entirely, L2 developed a new and openly available alternative: L2 Media Market Areas, or MMAs.
L2’s MMAs use Federal Communications Commission signal data, U.S. Census Bureau data and an analysis of local media consumption patterns to organize the country into practical geographic markets. These markets are designed to support media planning, audience analysis and geographic targeting without the licensing and downstream-use restrictions associated with proprietary market definitions.
The new MMA_Zone field assigns an L2 Media Market Area to approximately 260.6 million records, representing 98.4% of the National Consumer File.
L2’s Media Market Area definitions are open source and may be used without additional licensing restrictions. Our complete methodology is available in the L2 Media Market Areas white paper.
The existing DMA_Zone and DMA_Code fields remain in the file schema to minimize disruption to existing processes, but their contents have been nulled out.
Expanded Identification of U.S. Veterans
A new data source has significantly expanded L2’s ability to identify likely U.S. military veterans.
The National Consumer File now identifies slightly more than 9 million likely veterans at the individual level. The update also substantially increases the number of households identified as containing at least one veteran.
Two fields support this expanded coverage:
Veteranidentifies an individual as a likely U.S. military veteran.Military_Branchidentifies the associated service branch when known, including the Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Department of Defense, Marine Corps, Navy and Space Force.
Individual veteran identification is available on approximately 9.1 million records. Military branch information is available for approximately 1.3 million individuals.
These additions give organizations more precise ways to understand, analyze and communicate with veteran communities while distinguishing individual-level identification from household-level veteran indicators.
Approximately 22 Million Birth Date Records Improved
L2 has also completed a major upgrade to the file’s birth date information through the addition of newly licensed sources.
Approximately 22 million records were improved in this release. The enhancements include:
- Replacing birth dates previously accurate only to the year with full dates of birth.
- Replacing year-and-month values with full dates of birth.
- Adding birth dates to records for which that information was previously unavailable.
Following the update, L2’s BirthDate field contains information for approximately 243.2 million individuals, or 91.8% of the national file. The accompanying BirthDate_ConfidenceID field helps users assess the confidence associated with each birth date.
Improved birth date information can strengthen identity resolution, record matching, audience segmentation, age-based analysis and data hygiene.
5.5 Million Additional Likely Homeowners
The September release also adds approximately 5.5 million likely homeowners.
L2’s homeowner identification combines real-property and assessor records with modeled information, providing broader national coverage than property records alone. This enhancement expands the file’s value for organizations working in industries such as financial services, insurance, home improvement, telecommunications, utilities, real estate, public affairs and market research.
The updated Homeowner_Probability_Model now identifies approximately 151.2 million individuals as likely homeowners.
A More Complete National Consumer File
These improvements build on L2’s continuing investment in a consumer file designed for accurate matching, flexible audience creation and nationwide analysis.
The September 2026 release provides:
- 264.9 million individual consumer records.
- 800 available fields.
- Open-source Media Market Area assignments covering 98.4% of the file.
- More than 9 million individually identified likely veterans.
- Approximately 22 million improved birth date records.
- Approximately 5.5 million additional likely homeowners.
- Regular updates to addresses, consumer characteristics, new records and deceased-record removals.
Existing L2 clients can access these improvements through the latest National Consumer File release. Organizations interested in learning more about L2’s consumer data, available fields, licensing options or matching capabilities can contact L2 for additional information or a customized file consultation.
