FY2026 marks the 23rd annual appropriations cycle with a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) appropriations measure. For the 19th time in the history of DHS, resolution of annual appropriations for the department will occur more than a month after the beginning of the fiscal year. As of the date of publication, appropriations have lapsed for the department (beginning February 14, 2026), marking the fourth time in the department's history that its appropriations have lapsed for more than a week.
This report is a quick reference for tracking the status of FY2026 DHS appropriations.
For more in-depth analyses of the FY2026 DHS appropriations request and the congressional responses, see:
A lapse in appropriations began on October 1, 2026, and was temporarily resolved by the enactment of P.L. 119-37 on November 12, 2025, which included a continuing resolution (CR) that covered much of the government, including DHS, through January 30, 2026.1
Some advance supplemental appropriations provided in prior-year legislation became available at the beginning of FY2026.
The FY2025 reconciliation package included multi-year funding for several elements of DHS.
Every year, the federal government's fiscal year ends at midnight on September 30. As this deadline approaches, if any of the regular, full-year appropriations measures are not expected to be enacted by the end of the fiscal year, the Administration and Congress may take steps to prepare continuing appropriations legislation—known as a continuing resolution, or, more colloquially, "stopgap" funding—to extend funding for federal government operations until the unresolved appropriations measures are signed into law. CRs generally do not provide specific levels of budget authority to agencies. They usually provide budget authority necessary for agencies to continue operating for part of a fiscal year. The rate of operations provided by CRs is typically based on the amounts and authorities and conditions provided for in appropriations acts from the previous fiscal year, with certain deviations, exceptions, and restrictions.2 CRs typically provide funding through an expiration date specified in the measure or until full-year appropriations are enacted, whichever occurs first.
These steps first become visible to the public when the Administration provides Congress technical assistance on issues that would need to be addressed in the CR to avoid unintended consequences. These include proposed exceptions to the general funding provided by the CR for certain programs or activities, known as "anomalies." The technical assistance often includes extensions of authorizations that the Administration either proposes including, or would not object to including, in a CR in the event other legislation does not address expiring authorities in time. Congress weighs that information in formulating a CR, which is typically introduced in the House or Senate without being marked up and reported by the Appropriations Committees. A CR may be considered as a stand-alone measure or as part of a broader legislative package.
As was the case from mid-November 2025 to the end of January 2026, a CR may only cover certain federal government agencies in cases when some annual appropriation bills have already been enacted. DHS was the only agency covered by the CR extension from January 31, 2026, through February 13, 2026—the second time in its history that DHS was the sole department operating under a CR.3
A lapse in annual appropriations—known as a "funding gap"—occurs if the regular appropriations bills or a CR are not enacted prior to the end of a fiscal year, or an enacted CR is allowed to expire without enactment of either further continuing appropriations or the covered annual appropriations acts. Under the terms of the Antideficiency Act, a funding gap may result in a partial shutdown of operations for those agencies without enacted annual appropriations. Immediately prior to the end of the fiscal year, agencies release shutdown plans that indicate, in broad terms, how the partial shutdown of operations would be implemented.
Two general types of agency activities are allowed to continue:
Occasionally, funding gaps have occurred for a matter of hours, or over a weekend, meaning that a shutdown of certain activities may not have fully commenced.5 More extended lapses of annual appropriations have also occurred, both in FY2026 and before. For example, funding gaps occurring in FY2014 and FY2019 resulted in partial shutdowns of DHS operations for 16 and 34 days, respectively.6
The Office of Management and Budget requires agencies to submit contingency plans for lapses in annual appropriations. DHS's most recent contingency plan, published on September 29, 2025, included information on what activities would continue and which would cease in the event of such a funding gap.
Figure 1 and the ensuing text box present department-level information from the September 2025 plan.
The September 2025 plan included a summary of activities that would either continue or be suspended, as shown in the text box below.
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Summary of Activity Impacts (as presented in the September 2025 Plan)7 Brief summary of significant agency activities that will continue during a lapse:
Brief summary of significant agency activities that will cease during a lapse:
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According to the September 2025 plan, DHS had almost 29,000 more personnel at the end of May 2025 than it had averaged historically.8 The September 2025 plan envisioned DHS furloughing 8,711 fewer personnel than it had on average: this represented a reduction in the percentage furloughed from the historical average, from 13% to 8.4%.
Based on the September 2025 plan, DHS's eight operational components9 combined include 97% of DHS personnel, 7% of which were planned to be furloughed in the event of a funding gap. Exact numbers of actual furloughed employees for each of the recent shutdowns are not available, but some analysis is available in the sections below.
Several factors limit the utility of detailed analysis of the numbers provided in the September 2025 plan. Significant changes in the DHS workforce have occurred since the end of May 2025 as a result of the passage of time, the Administration's shifts in priorities within the parameters of traditional DHS funding streams, and the surge of funding provided in the FY2025 reconciliation package (P.L. 119-21, commonly referred to as the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act"). The Administration's contingency plan does not speak to the availability of P.L. 119-21 funding to allow certain otherwise non-exempt, non-excepted functions to continue.
The first funding gap for DHS in FY2026 occurred October 1, 2025, and lasted 42 days.
During the lapse, reports indicated that the Trump Administration used funds provided in the FY2025 reconciliation package to pay the salaries of 70,000 law enforcement personnel at a number of DHS agencies, including U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S. Secret Service, and federal air marshals from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).10 TSA screeners, however, remained unpaid for the course of the funding gap. Military personnel of the U.S. Coast Guard were also paid from resources provided in the reconciliation package.11
A second short funding gap occurred between January 31, 2026, and February 2, 2026, at which time Congress passed and the President signed into law a two-week CR extension. That extension expired on February 14, 2026, and a third funding gap began.
Unlike the first FY2026 funding gap, DHS made a number of statements about changes to operations they attributed to the lapse in appropriations. In a press release posted by DHS on February 17, 2026, the department highlighted a number of potential consequences of the ongoing shutdown:
While these effects are similar to those seen in previous lapses, it appears DHS may have curtailed its activities further during the ongoing funding gap than it had during the October FY2026 gap or other previous gaps. The DHS Office of Public Affairs announced on February 22 that it would curtail a number of its activities in a number of ways in response to the lapse in appropriations:
Figure 2 shows a history of the timing of the annual Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, since its first development in 2003 (for FY2004). Tracked actions include
In six of the first seven years of its existence, the annual appropriations measure for DHS was enacted within a month of the beginning of the fiscal year it covered. Since FY2010, no annual DHS appropriations measure has been enacted before two months of the fiscal year it covered had passed, and in thirteen of those sixteen years, three months had passed before DHS annual appropriations were enacted.
On May 2, 2025, President Donald Trump's Administration released its budget request for FY2026, including $107.4 billion in budget authority for DHS, $63.6 billion of which was discretionary appropriations, and $43.8 billion of which was from the mandatory resources to be provided in the FY2025 reconciliation act. According to DHS budget documents, the request included $63.65 billion in base discretionary appropriations, and $26.47 billion in disaster relief-designated funds.19
The FY2026 discretionary appropriations request was $1.56 billion less than the Administration's estimate of a full-year continuing resolution. In addition to this total, the Administration included a placeholder for $43.75 billion in spending from reconciliation funds. However, the budget request was released while Congress was still debating the reconciliation package, which would ultimately be enacted as P.L. 119-21.
For more information on the Administration's request, and its relationship to the reconciliation package please see CRS Report R48704, Understanding the FY2026 DHS Budget Request, by William L. Painter.
The following two subsections address funding that was available to DHS for FY2026 prior to action on the annual DHS appropriations measure: advance appropriations through P.L. 117-58, and (as noted above) P.L. 119-21.
On November 15, 2021, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) was signed into law as P.L. 117-58. Division J of the IIJA included a number of supplemental appropriations, including a total of $7.96 billion for DHS in Title V. Four appropriations received $6.1 billion of that total, with $1.22 billion available in FY2022, and $4.88 billion to be made available incrementally from FY2022 through FY2026, through what are known as advance appropriations.20 $1.02 billion of those advance appropriations became available in FY2026.
Table 1 lists DHS accounts with advance appropriations provided by P.L. 117-58, and includes a breakdown of amounts coming available each fiscal year, with FY2026 highlighted.
Table 1. Accounts with Supplemental and Advance Appropriations for DHS in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (P.L. 117-58)
(emergency-designated budget authority, in thousands of dollars)
|
Component / Appropriation / PPA |
Total Provided |
FY2022 |
FY2023 |
FY2024 |
FY2025 |
FY2026 |
|
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) |
||||||
|
Cybersecurity Response and Recovery Fund |
100,000 |
20,000 |
20,000 |
20,000 |
20,000 |
20,000 |
|
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) |
||||||
|
Federal Assistance |
||||||
|
Section 205 Grants (for establishing hazard mitigation revolving loan funds) |
500,000 |
100,000 |
100,000 |
100,000 |
100,000 |
100,000 |
|
Grants For Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructure |
1,000,000 |
200,000 |
400,000 |
300,000 |
100,000 |
0 |
|
Disaster Relief Fund (for Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities grants) |
1,000,000 |
200,000 |
200,000 |
200,000 |
200,000 |
200,000 |
|
National Flood Insurance Fund |
3,500,000 |
700,000 |
700,000 |
700,000 |
700,000 |
700,000 |
|
TOTAL ADVANCE APPROPRIATIONS |
6,100,000 |
1,220,000 |
1,420,000 |
1,320,000 |
1,120,000 |
1,020,000 |
Source: P.L. 117-58, Division J, Title V.
Notes: PPA = program, project, or activity. Division J, Title V also included $1.86 billion in accounts and PPAs that did not receive advance appropriations, and thus are not shown in Table 1.
The President signed the FY2025 reconciliation package into law (P.L.119-21) on July 4, 2025. The law included $191.02 billion in mandatory budget authority for DHS—the largest single package of DHS appropriations ever enacted. This included $168.96 billion for six DHS components and $22.06 billion directed to DHS activities through the Secretary. In total, this was almost double the gross level of budget authority provided in the FY2024 annual appropriations process.
Component-specific funding was provided for:
U.S. Coast Guard (USCG)—$24.59 billion for procurement and certain maintenance costs.29
U.S. Secret Service (USSS)—$1.17 billion for "additional United States Secret Service resources," including a newly authorized set of performance, retention and signing bonuses.30
The bill also provided $22.06 billion to the Office of the Secretary for a variety of purposes, including:
The Administration's public discussion of the plans for specific spending of the resources provided in P.L. 119-21 has been limited. Before the bill was enacted, the Administration projected that $43.75 billion would be spent from the reconciliation package funding in FY2026, broken down by general issue areas, rather than by component and appropriation (see Table 2).37
|
Program Activity |
Projected FY2026 Obligations |
|
Immigration Enforcement |
$18.542 billion |
|
Border Security |
$2.333 billion |
|
Border Wall Construction |
$11.500 billion |
|
State and Local Support |
$3.681 billion |
|
Coast Guard Acquisition |
$7.444 billion |
|
U.S. Secret Service Operations |
$0.250 billion |
Source: FY2026 Budget Appendix, p. 457, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/appendix_fy2026.pdf.
Notes: Projections in the Budget Appendix were not based on the enacted amounts in P.L. 119-21.
Beyond this estimate, no spending plan has been made public for resources from P.L. 119-21. While some of the purposes in the measure are broad, no provisions in P.L. 119-21 allow funds to be transferred or reprogrammed for purposes other than those outlined in the statutory language of the act.
On June 24, 2025, the House Committee on Appropriations (HAC) marked up H.R. 4213, its version of the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2026. H. Rept. 119-173 was filed on June 26, 2025, providing additional direction to DHS, and including minority party views. HAC-reported H.R. 4213 included $72.61 billion in discretionary budget authority, and $26.47 billion designated as being for the costs of major disasters. This was roughly $1.47 billion above the level requested by the Administration (leaving aside the reconciliation funding and disaster relief funding) and $1.13 billion above the FY2025 enacted amount.
The Senate Committee on Appropriations (SAC) did not mark up a version of the FY2026 Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act.
On December 19, 2025, the SAC released a committee draft of the FY2026 bill, along with a draft report.38 The committee draft included $72.46 billion in discretionary budget authority, and $26.37 billion designated as being for the costs of major disasters.
Congress did not pass an FY2026 DHS annual appropriations measure before the beginning of the fiscal year, a continuing resolution was not enacted, and annual appropriations lapsed on October 1, 2025. This lapse was resolved by an interim CR (P.L. 119-37) enacted November 12, 2025, lasting through January 30, 2026.39
On January 22, 2026, the House Rules Committee reported H.Res. 1014. This special rule, adopted by the House, provided for the consideration of a separate consolidated appropriations measure (H.R. 7148), as well as H.R. 7147, an FY2026 DHS annual appropriations measure that had been worked out by House and Senate negotiators. The DHS appropriations measure passed the House by a vote of 220-207. Pursuant to H. Res. 1014, H.R. 7147 was added to H.R. 7148 as Division H of the measure before it was sent to the Senate for consideration.
On January 30, 2026, the Senate passed an amended version of H.R. 7148, replacing the full-year DHS appropriations in Division H with an interim CR extending through February 13, 2026. After a brief lapse in appropriations from January 31 through February 2, 2026, the House agreed to the Senate amendment to H.R. 7148 by a vote of 217-214 on February 3, 2026, and the President signed the measure into law as P.L. 119-75 on the same day.
In the absence of an extension of the CR or enactment of annual appropriations, DHS appropriations lapsed again on February 14, 2026, and the Department is partially shut down as a result of the lapse in funding as of the date of publication.
| 1. |
For details on the initial CR for FY2026, see CRS Report R48765, Overview of Continuing Appropriations for FY2026 (Division A of P.L. 119-37), coordinated by Drew C. Aherne. |
| 2. |
The terms and conditions of those appropriations continue to apply under the CR. For more detailed information on continuing resolutions and how they work, see CRS Report R46595, Continuing Resolutions: Overview of Components and Practices, coordinated by James V. Saturno. |
| 3. |
In FY2015, when disputes over immigration policy led to the DHS appropriations bill being pulled from a consolidated appropriations measure, for almost three months DHS was the only federal department covered by a CR (P.L. 113-235, Division L) |
| 4. |
For further information on the impact of past shutdowns, see CRS Report R41759, Past Government Shutdowns: Key Resources, by Justin Murray and Carol Wilson. |
| 5. |
In FY2018, two brief lapses of annual appropriations occurred with expirations of the CR: on January 20, 2018, appropriations lapsed until January 22; and on February 8, 2018, appropriations lapsed for several hours until an extension of the CR was enacted. |
| 6. |
For more information on the impacts of past shutdowns, see CRS Report R41759, Past Government Shutdowns: Key Resources, by Jared C. Nagel and Justin Murray. |
| 7. |
U.S. Department of Homeland Security, "Procedures Related to a Lapse in Appropriations," September 29, 2025, p. 4, https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2025-09/2025_0930_dhs_procedures_related_to_a_lapse_in_appropriations.pdf. |
| 8. |
Based on CRS analysis of DHS lapse plans going back to FY2011, DHS averaged 243,061 employees. |
| 9. |
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Transportation Security Administration (TSA), U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), U.S. Secret Service (USSS), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). |
| 10. |
Heckman, Jory, "DHS Keeps Paying 70,000 Law Enforcement Officials amid Shutdown Using Reconciliation Funds," FederalNewsNetwork.com, October 17, 2025, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/government-shutdown/2025/10/dhs-to-keep-paying-70000-law-enforcement-officials-amid-shutdown-using-reconciliation-law/ |
| 11. |
Department of Homeland Security, "Secretary Noem Announces U.S. Coast Guard to Receive Paychecks Despite Government Shutdown Thanks to One Big Beautiful Bill Funding," press release, October 14, 2025, https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/10/14/secretary-noem-announces-us-coast-guard-receive-paychecks-despite-government. |
| 12. |
U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Office of Public Affairs, "Another Democrat Government Shutdown Dramatically Hurts America's National Security," February 17, 2026, https://www.dhs.gov/news/2026/02/17/another-democrat-government-shutdown-dramatically-hurts-americas-national-security. |
| 13. |
Press Release, "1 Week into Democrats' Shutdown, DHS Implements Emergency Measures to Conserve Resources and Manpower Impacting Travelers and FEMA Responses to Non-Disaster Areas," U.S. Department of Homeland Security, February 22, 2026, https://www.dhs.gov/news/2026/02/22/1-week-democrats-shutdown-dhs-implements-emergency-measures-conserve-resources-and. |
| 14. |
DHS Press Release, February 22, 2026. |
| 15. |
CRS analysis of February 22, 2026 email from DHS Office of Public Affairs, and subsequent reading of a modified statement on dhs.gov (https://www.dhs.gov/news/2026/02/22/1-week-democrats-shutdown-dhs-implements-emergency-measures-conserve-resources-and). See also https://www.businesstraveller.com/news/global-entry-goes-dark-tsa-precheck-survives/. |
| 16. |
DHS Press Release, February 22, 2026. |
| 17. |
FEMA, Disaster Relief Fund: Monthly Report as of January 31,2026, February 20, 2026, p. 4. |
| 18. |
See, for example, Brianna Sacks, "FEMA National Security Functions 'Significantly Constrained' During Shutdown, Email Warns," The Washington Post, February 23, 2026, https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2026/02/23/fema-continuity-shutdown-national-security/. |
| 19. |
CBO's estimates for the discretionary impact of potential legislation may change. This analysis uses CBO's estimates as reflected in H.Rept. 118-553. |
| 20. |
For more information on advance appropriations, see CRS Report R43482, Advance Appropriations, Forward Funding, and Advance Funding: Concepts, Practice, and Budget Process Considerations, by Jessica Tollestrup and Megan S. Lynch. |
| 21. |
P.L. 119-21, Sec. 90001 |
| 22. |
P.L. 119-21, Sec. 90004(a). |
| 23. |
P.L. 119-21, Sec. 90002(a)(1). |
| 24. |
P.L. 119-21, Sec. 90002(a)(2). |
| 25. |
P.L. 119-21, Sec. 90002(a)(3). |
| 26. |
P.L. 119-21, Sec. 90002(a)(4). |
| 27. |
P.L. 119-21, Sec. 90003. |
| 28. |
P.L. 119-21, Sec. 100052. Eleven subsections list potential uses of these funds, without specified funding levels. |
| 29. |
P.L. 119-21, Sec. 40001. Thirteen subsections list specific uses of these funds, with specified funding levels. |
| 30. |
P.L. 119-21, Sec. 100057. |
| 31. |
P.L. 119-21, Sec. 90005. |
| 32. |
P.L. 119-21, Sec. 90006. |
| 33. |
P.L. 119-21, Sec. 100053. |
| 34. |
P.L. 119-21, Sec. 90007. |
| 35. |
P.L. 119-21, Sec. 90005(b). |
| 36. |
P.L. 119-21, Sec. 100051. Twelve subsections list potential uses of these funds, without specified funding levels. |
| 37. |
Due to the lack of distinction between components in the budget appendix and between appropriations in the reconciliation package, it is not possible to present a detailed analysis of how the funding affects specific appropriations accounts. |
| 38. |
Links to the draft bill and report were made available at https://www.appropriations.senate.gov/news/majority/bill-text-homeland-security-act-2026. |
| 39. |
For details on this continuing resolution including specific DHS-related provisions, see CRS Report R48765, Overview of Continuing Appropriations for FY2026 (Division A of P.L. 119-37), coordinated by Drew C. Aherne. |