H.R. 7148 became Public Law 119-75 on February 3, 2026. Its enrolled text describes it as an Act "Making further consolidated appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2026, and for other purposes," and its section 1 gives it the short title Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026.

Two things about it are worth getting exactly right.

It was not signed in time to prevent a lapse in funding. The law's own Division H, section 102, provides that for purposes of the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2026, the time covered by that division "shall be considered to include the period which began on or about January 31, 2026, during which there occurred a lapse in appropriations." The stop-gap then in force had already expired: section 106(3) of that same Continuing Appropriations Act, 2026 set its expiration at January 30, 2026. The Congressional Research Service (CRS) describes what a lapse means for agencies: when they lack funding after the expiration of regular appropriations or a CR, they experience a "funding gap," and if no new appropriations are enacted in time, "the agencies are legally required to cease operations (known as a 'government shutdown'), except in certain situations when the law authorizes continued activities."

It did not fund the whole government. H.R. 7148 carries five of the twelve annual appropriations acts for fiscal year 2026 — October 1, 2025 through September 30, 2026, since a federal fiscal year is designated by the calendar year in which it ends. The other seven were enacted in three separate public laws, one of which H.R. 7148 names in its own text.

What is actually in the law

The bill's table of contents lists nine divisions, lettered A, B, D, E, F, G, H, I and J. There is no division C. Five of the nine are annual appropriations acts:

  • Division A — Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2026
  • Division B — Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2026
  • Division D — Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2026
  • Division E — Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, 2026
  • Division F — National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2026

The other four carry different material: Division G (Other Matters), Division H (Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2026), Division I (Authorizing Extenders and Technical Corrections) and Division J (Health Care Extenders). Section 3 provides that, except as expressly provided otherwise, any reference to "this Act" inside a division is treated as referring only to that division. Section 5 states that the sums in the Act are appropriated "for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2026."

Section 4 ties three of those divisions to another bill. The explanatory statements that govern how divisions E, F and G are to be implemented are the ones printed for divisions A, B and C of H.R. 7006 — a two-bill package that passed the House on January 14, 2026 and never became law. H.R. 7006 carried the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, 2026 as its division A, the National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2026 as division B, and an Other Matters division C. Those are divisions E, F and G here.

Writing each included bill in as its own division is the usual shape of a package; omnibus, minibus and CR covers the mechanics and the vocabulary.

Where the other seven bills went

Section 101 of H.R. 9770, the fiscal year 2027 continuing resolution the House passed in July 2026, lists all twelve FY2026 appropriations acts by name, with the law and division each one landed in:

  • Public Law 119-37 — Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies (division B); Legislative Branch (division C); Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies (division D)
  • Public Law 119-74 — Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies (division A); Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies (division B); Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies (division C)
  • Public Law 119-75 — the five divisions listed above
  • Public Law 119-86 — Department of Homeland Security (division A)

Public Law 119-86 is H.R. 7147, the Homeland Security and Further Additional Continuing Appropriations Act, 2026, which became law on April 30, 2026 — almost three months after this one. Public Law 119-37 is H.R. 5371, the Continuing Appropriations, Agriculture, Legislative Branch, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Extensions Act, 2026, from November 12, 2025. H.R. 7148 names that law inside itself: its Division H, section 105, repeals section 213 of title II of division C of it.

The route it took, and the gap in the middle

The House passed H.R. 7148 on January 22, 2026 by 341-88 (Roll No. 45). In the Senate, cloture on the motion to proceed was not invoked on January 29, 45-55 (Record Vote No. 13). The motion to proceed was agreed to by unanimous consent the following day, and the Senate passed the bill with amendments 71-29 (Record Vote No. 20) on January 30. The House agreed to the Senate amendments on February 3 by 217-214 (Roll No. 53), and the bill was signed the same day.

Division H is where the law deals with the days in between. Section 101 amends the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2026 (division A of Public Law 119-37) by striking the date specified in its section 106(3) and inserting "February 13, 2026" — moving the stop-gap's expiration forward from the January 30 date it had already passed. Section 102 folds the lapse period into that division's coverage. Under section 106 of that CR, its funding for any given project or activity runs only until an appropriation for that activity is enacted, or the applicable FY2026 act is enacted without a provision for it, or the named date arrives — whichever happens first. Section 103 makes amounts for personnel pay, allowances and benefits available for payments under subsection (c) of section 1341 of title 31, United States Code, and provides that "such payments shall be made." Section 104 ratifies and approves obligations incurred in anticipation of those appropriations for the purposes of maintaining the essential level of activity to protect life and property and bringing about orderly termination of government function.

The February 13 date did not hold either. By the time this law was signed, eleven of the twelve annual bills had been enacted — three in Public Law 119-37 on November 12, 2025, three in Public Law 119-74 on January 23, 2026, and five here — leaving only the Department of Homeland Security bill. That one became Public Law 119-86 on April 30, 2026, and its own Division B, section 102, records a further lapse in appropriations beginning on or about February 14, 2026: the day after the date this law had just inserted. Section 101 of that division dropped the fixed date altogether, substituting the date of enactment of that Act for the one in section 106(3).

General provisions, and what else rode along

CRS describes the standard shape of a regular appropriations act: it is organized as a series of mostly unnumbered paragraphs, each generally corresponding to a budgetary account, and "a separate title at the end of each act also includes a numbered list of general provisions, which are requirements that apply to multiple accounts or all of the accounts in the act." House and Senate rules, CRS adds, "preserve the distinction between authorizations and appropriations by prohibiting the inclusion of general legislative language in appropriations measures" — House Rule XXI and Senate Rule XVI.

What that produces in practice is visible in this law's own text:

  • Division G is one section long. It bars funds appropriated or otherwise made available by division F, or by other Acts making appropriations for the Department of State, foreign operations and related programs, from being used for a contribution, grant or other payment to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency — both for amounts provided in prior fiscal years or in fiscal year 2026, and for amounts provided in fiscal year 2027 until March 25, 2027.
  • Division B, section 528 rescinds $11.66B of unobligated balances from section 10301(1)(A)(iii) of Public Law 117-169.
  • Division F, section 7072 permanently rescinds unobligated balances under seven named headings from prior Acts making appropriations for the Department of State, foreign operations and related programs. The two largest are $900M under "Consular and Border Security Programs" and $661.3M under "Millennium Challenge Corporation."
  • Section 6, which sits before Division A and outside every division, appropriates $174,000 to Jill Marie LaMalfa, widow of the late Representative Douglas L. LaMalfa of California.

Divisions I and J are the two the law itself labels extenders — "Authorizing Extenders and Technical Corrections" and "Health Care Extenders." Some of what they carry is exactly that. Division I pushes the National Flood Insurance Program's financing authority and its program expiration from September 30, 2023 to September 30, 2026, and moves September 30, 2025 dates in United States Grain Standards Act authorities, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015, the National Cybersecurity Protection System authorization and the State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program to September 30, 2026. The flood-insurance section carries its own effective-date rule: if the Act were enacted after January 30, 2026 — which it was — that section takes effect as if enacted on January 30, 2026. Division J section 6209 extends certain telehealth flexibilities.

Both divisions carry more than that, and CRS records the pattern. Eleven of the eighteen omnibus appropriations measures enacted from FY2012 through FY2024 "included at least one additional division containing legislation unrelated to the appropriations process for that fiscal year," and those divisions "have often included legislation related to the extension or amendment of existing authorizations, as well as legislation establishing new programs, projects, or activities." Both kinds are here. Division I section 5016 lets the Secretary of Homeland Security, after consulting the Secretary of Labor, raise the statutory cap on H-2B visas on determining that the needs of United States businesses cannot be satisfied during fiscal year 2026 with United States workers who are willing, qualified, and able to perform temporary nonagricultural labor. The increase is capped at the highest number of H-2B nonimmigrants who took part in the returning worker program in any fiscal year when returning workers were exempt from that limit. Section 5011 disapplies the Parole Commission's expiration for a period ending January 30, 2031. In Division J, section 6101 requires a streamlined enrollment process for eligible out-of-State providers under Medicaid and CHIP, section 6221 adds Medicare coverage of multi-cancer early detection screening tests, section 6611 establishes an Abraham Accords Office within the Food and Drug Administration, and title VII carries pharmacy benefit manager oversight and a rebate pass-through requirement. Division J runs to seven titles in all: Medicaid, Medicare, Human Services, Public Health and Other Extenders, Public Health Programs, Food and Drug Administration, and Lowering Prescription Drug Costs.

Section 5021, the last section of Division I, exempts both divisions from pay-as-you-go scorekeeping. It provides that the budgetary effects of that division "and each succeeding division" are not to be entered on either scorecard maintained under section 4(d) of the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010, nor on any scorecard kept for purposes of section 4106 of H. Con. Res. 71 of the 115th Congress. Division J is the succeeding division, and it says nothing about this itself.

None of it was put to the House separately. A special rule can direct the House to vote on retaining individual divisions of a package — two weeks earlier the House had done exactly that on H.R. 6938, agreeing to retain division A by 375-47 and divisions B and C by 419-6 — but H. Res. 1014, the rule for this bill, provided for one hour of debate and a motion to recommit, and the action record shows no division-retention votes. Roll No. 45 was a single vote on passage of the whole measure.

What happens next: FY2027

The Act appropriates for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2026. As of publication, the complete list of laws enacted in the 119th Congress — 104 entries, running through Public Law 119-102 — contains no fiscal year 2027 appropriations act. The only five entries whose titles carry the word "Appropriations" name fiscal year 2025 or fiscal year 2026.

Two FY2027 measures have passed the House. Neither has a recorded action after its arrival in the Senate. H.R. 9770, the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2027, passed 220-205 on July 21, 2026 (Roll No. 272) and was received in the Senate the next day; that receipt is still its latest recorded action. H.R. 8646, which makes appropriations for Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies programs for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2027, passed the House 213-210 on June 4, 2026 (Roll no. 205) and was received in the Senate on June 8; it has had no recorded action since.

For the wider process these bills move through, see how federal appropriations work; for what a stop-gap does to the agencies living under one, continuing resolutions; and for what happens when neither is in place, government shutdowns.

Primary Sources

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