Federal agencies have funding only through Dec. 11 under a stopgap spending bill signed on Sept. 2. The measure, H.R. 6500, is titled the Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2027. The White House describes it as “a short-term continuing resolution that provides fiscal year 2027 appropriations to Federal agencies through December 11, 2026, for continuing projects and activities of the Federal Government.”
The bill is now Public Law 119-103, and the text published by the Government Publishing Office sets the same Dec. 11 date. From signing to that deadline is 100 days. After that, Congress has to pass full-year funding bills or another extension.
For federal employees, the question is whether paychecks keep coming after Dec. 11. For retirees, contractors and people who rely on federal services, it is whether offices and programs stay open. The answer depends on what Congress does over the next nine weeks, and on what a lapse in funding would and would not stop.
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What the stopgap keeps running
A continuing resolution does not write a new budget. It lets agencies keep operating on spending terms already in place. NASFAA, the association for student aid administrators, reports that the bill holds funding at fiscal year 2026 levels while Congress finishes work on the 2027 budget.
The law carries more than a funding date. Its text extends several veterans’ provisions through Dec. 11, including the authority to collect copayments, nursing home care requirements and housing help for homeless veterans. Surface transportation programs and trust fund spending run one day longer, through Dec. 12, under the Surface Transportation Extension Act of 2026 section. Agricultural and food assistance programs are continued through Dec. 11 as well.
Dec. 11 falls on a Friday. Anything that depends on the stopgap, from a veterans’ housing program to a farm program, shares that same cliff.
Provisions that reach well past December
Not everything in the law expires this year. The same text extends the African Growth and Opportunity Act and the Haiti Economic Lift Program to 2028, and customs user fees through March 31, 2032. It also sets the Medicare Improvement Fund at $2,041,000,000 in section 2007.
A section on congressional pay says no adjustment shall be made under section 601(a) of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946. Another authorizes death gratuity payments of $174,000 each to the beneficiaries of the late Representative David A. Scott and the late Senator Lindsey O. Graham.
What a lapse would and would not stop
If the money ran out with no new bill, the Office of Personnel Management is the agency that sets pay and leave rules for federal employees. Its page on lapses in appropriations lists guidance for shutdown furloughs dated Jan. 30, 2026, along with earlier papers on pay and benefits for employees affected by a lapse and on retroactive pay.
The same page says some agency functions have alternative funding sources and are not directly affected by a lapse in annual appropriations. Employees doing that work, OPM says, “will generally continue to be governed by the normal pay, leave, and other civil service rules.” Which jobs fall into that group depends on how each function is paid for, and OPM’s page does not list them.
Nothing in the law schedules a lapse. Dec. 11 is a deadline, and Congress can act before it by passing the 2027 bills or by sending the President another stopgap.
Getting ready for the Dec. 11 deadline
Anyone who works for a federal agency, or who depends on a program funded by this law, can prepare without guessing what Congress will do. Keep the latest pay statement handy, list the automatic payments that leave the checking account, and note which bills come due in the first two weeks of December. A few weeks of cushion matters most for households where a federal paycheck is the only income.
The free official source for pay and leave rules during a funding lapse is OPM’s guidance page, linked above. Veterans, farmers and others who rely on the extended programs can watch for notices from the agency that runs the benefit, since the extensions all end on or about the same date.
The White House says the law funds agencies through Dec. 11, 2026, and Public Law 119-103 carries the same date. Until Congress passes another bill, that is the date that counts.
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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
