How many U.S. government shutdowns have there been? Which was the longest?
The U.S. federal government went into shutdown on Saturday, with the House still to pass a funding package approved by the Senate.
The U.S. government has entered its second shutdown in a matter of months, after lawmakers in Washington were unable to approve a federal funding package before Friday’s deadline of midnight ET.
While senators finally agreed on and passed a spending package on Friday, the legislation must still be approved by the House of Representatives. The lower chamber is not due to convene until the start of next week.
According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), there have now been 22 federal funding gaps since the current budget process was introduced in 1976. The stoppage comes fresh on the heels of a record-breaking government shutdown in October and November last year.
How has the latest shutdown come about?
On Saturday, the U.S. government entered a partial shutdown after Congress failed to pass a group of six appropriations bills for the fiscal year ending Sep. 30, out of a total of 12 pieces of funding legislation.
The outstanding bills cover spending on several departments of the federal government, such as Defense, Education, Labor, and Health and Human Services.
The sticking point was funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which was part of the six-bill bundle sent to the Senate earlier this month. Following the killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis, Democratic senators pushed back against approving the DHS legislation.
The DHS bill has now been removed from the package, allowing lawmakers time to negotiate reforms to immigration authorities’ operations. In the meantime, senators have passed a short-term funding extension for the DHS, along with the five year-long appropriations bills.
U.S. government shutdowns over the years
Although there have been more than 20 federal funding gaps over the past half century, they have mostly been very short in duration, explains the CRFB.
Prior to 1980, there were six brief funding gaps - but they did not result in any work stoppage by the federal government. Since 1981, moreover, “ten funding gaps of three days or fewer have occurred, mostly over a weekend when government operations were only minimally affected”, the CRFB notes.
However, a handful of government shutdowns have been far more significant. Of two stoppages in 1995, under the presidency of Democrat Bill Clinton, the second lasted 21 days. Two decades on, in late 2018 and early 2019, a 35-day shutdown during Republican president Donald Trump’s first term cost the U.S. economy an estimated $11bn.
Seven years later, during the first 12 months of Trump’s second presidency, the U.S. witnessed its longest ever shutdown: a 43-day stoppage that stretched from Oct. 1 to Nov. 12, amid disagreement between Republicans and Democrats over healthcare spending.
When will House vote to end present shutdown?
With the House set to take up Friday’s Senate-passed package on Monday, it is hoped that the current shutdown will go down among the funding gaps that were quickly closed. On Thursday, the lower chamber’s speaker, Mike Johnson, suggested he expected only a “short shutdown situation”. The Republican added: “The House is going to do its job.”
At a glance - longest U.S. shutdowns:
- 1. Oct. to Nov. 2025: 43 days (President: Donald Trump)
- 2. Dec. 2018 to Jan. 2019: 35 days (President: Donald Trump)
- 3. Dec. 1995 to Jan. 1996: 21 days (President: Bill Clinton)
- 4. Oct. 2013: 16 days (President: Barack Obama)
- 5. Nov. 1995: 6 days (President: Bill Clinton)
Why do government shutdowns exist?
Shutdowns happen because Congress is the only body responsible for the allocation of government funding. This means if Congress cannot pass a budget, the president does not have the power to unilaterally decide on funding.
The American political system means the president can be in power without having his or her party controlling Senate or the House of Representatives. This makes passing legislation, including budgets, much more difficult, requiring negotiation and compromise on both sides.
In other presidential systems around the world, the president has the authority to keep governments functioning without a budget. In parliamentary systems, prime ministers normally resign if they no longer control the majority in parliament, leading to more elections.
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