The United States federal government is reopening on Friday after Congress passed and the president signed a funding bill ending a 43-day shutdown, the longest in American history.

The Senate approved the package on 10 November by 60 votes to 40, and the House of Representatives followed on 12 November by 222 votes to 209. The legislation, the Continuing Appropriations, Agriculture, Legislative Branch, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Extensions Act of 2026, known as H.R. 5371, restores funding across the federal government after a closure that began on 1 October.

The shutdown surpassed the previous record of 35 days set during the 2018-19 funding lapse. It left hundreds of thousands of federal workers unpaid, delayed food assistance for millions of families and disrupted air travel across the country, as staffing shortages hit airports.

What the funding deal does

Most federal agencies are funded through 30 January 2026 under the deal, giving lawmakers just over two months to agree the remaining spending bills before another funding deadline. Three departments receive full-year funding for the rest of the fiscal year, which ends on 30 September 2026: Agriculture, Veterans Affairs and the legislative branch, along with the Food and Drug Administration and military construction programmes.

The package also reverses the mass layoffs of furloughed federal workers carried out during the shutdown and bars any new reductions in force through 30 January 2026. Funding for SNAP, the food assistance programme commonly known as food stamps, is continued through September 2026, and authorisations for programmes that expired on 30 September, including Medicare telehealth flexibilities and the E-Verify immigration system, are extended to the end of January.

Federal employees who worked without pay during the shutdown will begin receiving back pay on Saturday, with all payments scheduled to be completed by Wednesday, according to the White House.

What the deal leaves out

The agreement does not extend the enhanced Affordable Care Act premium tax credits, the issue at the centre of the dispute. The credits, which help more than 20 million Americans pay for health insurance, are due to expire at the end of December. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has promised a separate vote on extending the subsidies no later than the second week of December, although the measure faces long odds in the Republican-controlled Senate and is even less likely to pass in the House.

President Donald Trump signalled his support for the bill before the final votes, telling reporters: “We’re going to be opening up our country very quickly.” A Reuters/Ipsos poll released during the final week of the shutdown found that 50 per cent of Americans blamed Republicans for the closure, while 47 per cent blamed Democrats.

Agencies are technically back open from Friday, but officials caution that returning to normal operations will take time. It is unclear how long it will take departments to clear the backlogs built up over 43 days, and Congress now has just over two months to finalise the remaining nine appropriations bills before the threat of another shutdown returns.