How Federal Appropriations Work: The 12 Bills Congress Rarely Passes on Time

Twelve annual appropriations bills fund the operations of most federal agencies. The Congressional Research Service (CRS) calls that category discretionary spending — spending controlled through the appropriations process, which "generally consists of funding for the operations of most federal agencies and most of the programs, projects, and activities each carries out." The process is built around those twelve bills, one for each of the twelve parallel subcommittees of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, and they are meant to be enacted before the fiscal year begins on October 1.

That has happened four times since fiscal year 1977. The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 moved the fiscal year to an October 1 start beginning with FY1977, and CRS records that "since FY1977, there have been four times when all regular appropriations bills have been enacted before the start of the fiscal year, most recently for FY1997."

The twelve bills, and what each one became for FY2026

Since the 110th Congress, CRS writes, both Appropriations Committees have been "organized in 12 subcommittees, with each subcommittee responsible for developing and managing the consideration of one regular appropriations act." The subcommittee names below are CRS's. What follows each is the act that subcommittee's work actually became for fiscal year 2026: section 101 of H.R. 9770, the FY2027 continuing resolution, names all twelve enacted acts with the public law and division each one landed in. The departments named are the ones each act's own titles name.

1. Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies — division B of Public Law 119-37. Its titles cover agricultural programs, farm production and conservation, rural development, domestic food programs, foreign assistance, and the Food and Drug Administration. (H.R. 9770 names the act "Related Agencies"; the enacted division heading reads "Related Agency".)
2. Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies — division A of Public Law 119-74. Titles: the Department of Commerce, the Department of Justice, Science, and related agencies.
3. Defense — division A of Public Law 119-75. Titles: military personnel; operation and maintenance; procurement; research, development, test and evaluation; revolving and management funds; other Department of Defense programs; related agencies.
4. Energy and Water Development, and Related Agencies — division B of Public Law 119-74. Titles: Corps of Engineers—Civil; the Department of the Interior; the Department of Energy; independent agencies.
5. Financial Services and General Government — division E of Public Law 119-75. Titles: the Department of the Treasury; the Executive Office of the President and funds appropriated to the President; the Judiciary; the District of Columbia; independent agencies.
6. Homeland Security — division A of Public Law 119-86. Titles: departmental management, intelligence, situational awareness and oversight; security, enforcement and investigations; protection, preparedness, response and recovery; research, development, training and services.
7. Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies — division C of Public Law 119-74. Titles: the Department of the Interior; the Environmental Protection Agency; related agencies.
8. Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies — division B of Public Law 119-75. Titles: the Department of Labor; the Department of Health and Human Services; the Department of Education; related agencies.
9. Legislative Branch — division C of Public Law 119-37. One substantive title, Legislative Branch, plus general provisions.
10. Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies — division D of Public Law 119-37. Titles: the Department of Defense; the Department of Veterans Affairs; related agencies.
11. State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs — enacted for FY2026 under a different name, the National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2026, as division F of Public Law 119-75. Titles: the Department of State and related programs; administration of assistance; bilateral economic assistance; international security assistance; multilateral assistance; export and investment assistance.
12. Transportation and Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies — division D of Public Law 119-75, enacted as the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2026. Titles: the Department of Transportation; the Department of Housing and Urban Development; related agencies.

CRS notes one standing difference between the chambers: funding for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission sits in the Agriculture bill in the House and in the Financial Services and General Government bill in the Senate, and since 2007 the two chambers have alternated which of the two carries it when enacted.

How the process is designed to work

Subcommittee work on the bills typically begins shortly after the President submits an annual budget request, which CRS notes the President "is required to submit ... by the first Monday in February each calendar year (31 U.S.C. §1105), although the actual submission of the budget may sometimes be delayed." Agencies then send the Appropriations Committees detailed budget justifications setting out their spending plans and how they used the prior year's money.

Subcommittees typically hold hearings with agency officials, and typically collect input from members who do not sit on Appropriations. Markups often begin in the spring, working from a draft the subcommittee chair provides — the chair's mark. The subcommittee votes to send an amended draft to the full committee, which marks it up again and votes to report it.

House rules let the Appropriations Committee report an original bill, so "an appropriations bill is not formally introduced and assigned a bill number until the House Appropriations Committee reports it." And the written reports that accompany the bills, which carry the detail about what agencies are expected to do with the money, are not law. "Because the text of these reports is not included in the legislative text," CRS writes, "it does not establish a statutory requirement or obligation that the agency must follow." Agencies tend to heed report language anyway, since it indicates congressional intent, and in some instances report language has been incorporated into statutory text by reference.

The ceilings the bills are written against

The bills are written against ceilings set elsewhere. The Congressional Budget Act provides for a concurrent resolution on the budget, which sets the framework Congress works within. It is not a law: "the President cannot sign or veto it, and it does not have statutory effect, so no money can be raised or spent pursuant to it."

The enforceable part is the allocation. The report accompanying the budget resolution divides total budget authority among the committees with spending jurisdiction — the Section 302(a) allocations — and an allocation under Section 302(a) "effectively sets an enforceable ceiling on total appropriations." The Appropriations Committees then subdivide their own 302(a) amount among their subcommittees. Those are the 302(b) suballocations, and they give each subcommittee its own ceiling; they become enforceable once the committees have reported them.

None of this is guaranteed to exist. The House may consider regular appropriations bills after May 15 even if a budget resolution has not been adopted or 302(a) allocations or 302(b) suballocations made, and "without a budget resolution, there may not be an enforceable upper limit on the overall level of appropriations." When Congress has reached final agreement on a budget resolution after April 15, or has not reached agreement at all, the chambers have used what are called deeming resolutions, which stand in for an agreement between the two chambers for the purpose of setting enforceable levels.

On the floor

CRS records that while the two chambers' practices for developing appropriations measures are similar, "the manner in which the two chambers consider legislation in plenary session has significant differences." Since the 111th Congress the House has considered regular appropriations measures "exclusively under the terms of special rules" reported by the Rules Committee, and since the 115th it has used structured special rules to do it. Where several bills are combined, each is written in as a separate division and "the special rules then provide that each division is to be amended separately in sequential order." Once amending is finished the House votes on engrossment and third reading, a member who opposed the measure may move to recommit, and then the House votes on final passage.

The Senate has no equivalent tool. It "lacks a procedural mechanism like the House Rules Committee and special rules that can be used to tailor its consideration of regular appropriations measures," and appropriations bills carry no special privilege there, so a motion to proceed to one "would be debatable in most circumstances" — which opens both the motion and the bill to extended debate. The Senate gets past that by unanimous consent or by invoking cloture, which Senate Rule XXII sets at "three-fifths of all Senators (60 votes if there is no more than one vacancy)." Senate Rule XVI separately restricts amendments to appropriations bills, including amendments that propose general legislation or are not germane to the bill's subject matter.

Then the differences have to be resolved, because the Constitution requires that both chambers "pass the same measure without any differences in the legislative text." The simplest route is one chamber taking up and passing the other's bill unchanged; otherwise the chambers use a conference committee or an exchange of amendments. CRS records the outcome either way: "regardless of the approach, the House bill has been the legislative vehicle ultimately enacted."

What actually happens instead

When the twelve bills are not enacted in time, Congress uses continuing appropriations acts — continuing resolutions — to provide interim funding. CRS describes a CR as "usually comprised of three main components": temporary appropriations continuing funding "for the activities funded by the prior year's regular appropriations acts"; provisions limiting how agencies may use that authority while the CR runs; and anomalies — additional provisions that give specific programs or activities extra funding, exceptions to the CR's terms and conditions, or other legislative changes.

The bills that do get enacted are frequently combined rather than passed one at a time. CRS puts it this way: "Congress has often taken procedural action at some point in the appropriations process to combine some or all of the regular appropriations bills into a single measure." A measure carrying several of them is an omnibus or consolidated appropriations act; one carrying only some is usually called a minibus. Omnibus vs. minibus vs. CR covers how those packages are built and how the words are used.

Fiscal year 2026 shows what the finished cycle can look like — and it was not one omnibus. All twelve regular bills were enacted, across four public laws: three of them in Public Law 119-37 in November 2025, three in Public Law 119-74 in January 2026, five in Public Law 119-75 in February 2026 — a nine-division law of which only those five are annual appropriations acts — and the last, Homeland Security, in Public Law 119-86 at the end of April. Two lapses in appropriations occurred along the way, both recorded in the laws that ended them: one beginning on or about January 31, 2026, and a second beginning on or about February 14, 2026.

Congress also enacts supplemental appropriations acts, which "provide budget authority in addition to any amounts provided by regular or continuing appropriations measures" and are "usually developed in response to urgent and unanticipated needs, such as natural disasters and urgent military operations."

Discretionary spending, and what else appropriations acts carry

The twelve bills govern discretionary spending, but they are not confined to it. Appropriations legislation "also provides funding for certain programs controlled by laws other than appropriations acts, known as 'appropriated entitlements' or 'appropriated mandatories.'" And in the Government Accountability Office's budget glossary, the major types of appropriation act are "regular, supplemental, deficiency, and continuing" — regular acts being all those that are not one of the other three.

Where this connects

For what a package looks like once enacted, see the 2026 Consolidated Appropriations Act; for what a stop-gap does to the agencies living under one, continuing resolutions; for what happens when neither is in place, government shutdowns; and for the route any bill has to travel, how a bill becomes law.

Drafted from primary source documents by LegislationPatch's automated research pipeline, then reviewed, verified, and edited by James Shearn, Editor. Every figure and citation is checked against the official text before publication. See our editorial standards and AI disclosure.