A continuing resolution, usually called a CR, is a temporary law that keeps the United States federal government funded when Congress has not passed its regular annual spending bills on time. It funds federal agencies at broadly the same levels as the year before, for a fixed period, until Congress finishes the proper budget laws. The latest one ended the longest shutdown in American history: President Donald Trump signed it into law on the night of 11 November 2026, after the House of Representatives approved it by 222 votes to 209, reopening a government that had been shut since 1 October.

If the phrase sounds technical, the idea is simple. Congress is supposed to pass twelve separate spending bills every year before the federal financial year begins on 1 October. When it misses that deadline, it has two choices: let funding lapse, which shuts down large parts of the government, or pass a stopgap. A continuing resolution is that stopgap, and it has become one of the most used tools in American politics.

Why does the US need continuing resolutions?

The need comes from the way American public money works. The Constitution says that no money may be drawn from the Treasury except under an appropriation made by law, and a separate law, the Antideficiency Act, bars federal agencies from spending money Congress has not provided. In practice, that means that when the financial year starts on 1 October and the twelve regular appropriations acts have not been passed, agencies lose their legal authority to spend.

A continuing resolution restores that authority on a temporary basis. The Congressional Research Service, the research arm of Congress, defines it as a law that provides temporary funding to continue certain programmes and activities until action on the regular appropriations acts is completed. It is not a budget in the normal sense. It does not decide what the government should spend in the year ahead. It keeps the lights on while that argument continues.

The stopgap is used far more often than most people realise. Congress has enacted one or more continuing resolutions in all but three of the 49 financial years since the financial year was moved to start on 1 October, beginning with financial year 1977. The last financial year in which no continuing resolution was needed at all was 1997. Between financial years 1998 and 2025, funding for one or more of the regular spending bills was provided through continuing resolutions for an average of 118 days before the process was completed for that year. In other words, governing by stopgap has become normal, not exceptional.

What is in a continuing resolution?

The Congressional Research Service identifies six main components that Congress typically builds into a continuing resolution. The first is coverage: the resolution usually funds activities by referring back to the previous financial year's spending acts, rather than listing every programme again. The second is duration. A continuing resolution provides budget authority for a specified period, which can be as short as a single day or as long as the remainder of the financial year.

The third component is the funding rate. In recent practice, continuing resolutions have typically provided money as an overall rate of operations, usually the previous year's level, rather than as specified sums for each item. The fourth is a restriction on new activities: money provided under a continuing resolution generally may not be used for programmes or projects that were not funded in the previous year. The fifth is anomalies, which are exceptions that adjust the duration, the amount or the permitted purposes of the money for particular activities. The sixth is legislative provisions, which create, amend or extend other laws and are included in some resolutions.

Occasionally a continuing resolution covers a whole financial year. That has happened for most or all of the regular spending bills in the financial years 2007, 2011, 2013 and 2025. A full-year continuing resolution is the bluntest version of the tool: it locks the government into last year's spending pattern for twelve months, with no new programmes and no fresh decisions.

How is a continuing resolution passed?

A continuing resolution becomes law in the same way as any other federal law. The House of Representatives and the Senate must pass the same text, and the President must sign it. A bill can also become law without the President's signature, or Congress can override a presidential veto, but in practice a funding deal of this kind ends with a signature in the Oval Office.

That sounds straightforward, but it is where the politics bites. In the Senate, most legislation needs 60 votes to clear a procedural hurdle, and the November 2026 deal only moved when eight Democrats joined most Republicans to advance it by 60 votes to 40 on Sunday 8 November. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer voted against advancing the package because it failed to address health care funding, and one Republican, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, also voted against it. The package then had to pass the House, which had been out of session since 19 September, before it could reach the President's desk.

What did the November 2026 continuing resolution do?

The package that ended the 2026 shutdown was a 394-page measure that the Senate substantially reworked from a stopgap bill the House had originally passed in mid-September, according to the Associated Press. At its core is a continuing resolution that funds most of the federal government at existing levels through 30 January 2027, giving Congress about eleven more weeks to complete the full-year spending bills for the financial year that began on 1 October.

Attached to the stopgap are three full-year spending bills, which fund their areas for the whole financial year: the Agriculture Department, including the Food and Drug Administration; the Department of Veterans Affairs and military construction; and the legislative branch, which is Congress itself. The inclusion of three completed bills was described by the Senate Appropriations chair, Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine, as highly significant, and as a return to a more normal appropriations process.

The package also dealt with the human consequences of the shutdown. It provides back pay for federal workers who were furloughed or working without pay during the funding lapse, something the Trump administration had left in doubt. It reinstates federal workers who had received reduction-in-force, or layoff, notices during the shutdown and bars further layoffs through January. About 800,000 federal workers were either furloughed or working without pay during the shutdown, and hundreds of thousands went without pay for weeks.

Food assistance was protected too. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, the food assistance programme used by about 42 million lower-income Americans, is fully funded through the end of the financial year under the Agriculture bill, so its benefits no longer depend on the next round of negotiations. The package also ensures that states are reimbursed for money they spent to keep SNAP and the Women, Infants and Children programme, known as WIC, running during the shutdown.

The shutdown it ended had lasted 43 days by the calendar, from 1 October to 11 November, making it the longest in American history. It passed the previous record of 35 days set during the funding lapse of December 2018 to January 2019, in Mr Trump's first term. Federal agencies were expected to begin reopening within hours of the signing, with furloughed workers returning to their jobs and back pay to follow.

What a continuing resolution does not do

A continuing resolution solves the immediate crisis and nothing else. It does not settle the argument that caused the shutdown. The November deal contains no extension of the enhanced tax credits that lower the cost of health insurance bought through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces, which was the demand Democrats made the condition of their support for six weeks. Those credits expire at the end of December, and the promise Democrats extracted in return is a Senate vote on extending them, no later than the second week of December, rather than the extension itself.

Nor does a continuing resolution give the government a settled budget. Most federal departments remain funded at last year's rates, with no new activities allowed and no fresh decisions taken about priorities. The three full-year bills attached to the November package are the exception, not the rule. For the rest of the government, the real budget argument has simply been postponed until January.

What happens when a continuing resolution expires?

When a continuing resolution reaches its end date, Congress must have passed the full-year spending bills or agreed another continuing resolution. If it has done neither, funding lapses again and the government shuts down again. That is why the date in the resolution matters so much: 30 January 2027 is now the next deadline in American politics.

There is nothing automatic about what follows. Congress could complete the remaining nine spending bills before then, pass a second short stopgap to buy more time, or fail to agree and face another funding lapse. The history suggests the stopgap route is the most likely: in the years from 1998 to 2025, sixteen times the first continuing resolution of the year covered all of the regular spending bills, and funding ran on stopgap authority for an average of 118 days. The November deal is, in that sense, entirely typical. It buys time. It does not buy agreement.

Continuing resolution, shutdown and debt ceiling: what is the difference?

The three terms are often confused, but they describe different problems. A shutdown happens when Congress has not provided legal authority to spend, because the annual spending bills have lapsed and no continuing resolution is in force. A continuing resolution is the temporary authority that prevents that from happening. The debt ceiling is different again: it is a limit on how much the Treasury may borrow to meet obligations the government has already incurred. A shutdown is about permission to spend; a debt-limit problem is about permission to borrow. Both can disrupt the government, but they operate through different laws and are resolved in different ways.

Frequently asked questions

How long can a continuing resolution last? Its duration can be as short as a single day or as long as the remainder of the financial year, according to the Congressional Research Service. Most are measured in weeks or months, and Congress often passes several in succession.

Does a continuing resolution increase government spending? Generally no. It usually funds agencies at the previous year's rate and bars money from being used for new activities that were not funded the year before, although anomalies can adjust the amount or purpose of the money for particular programmes.

Did the November 2026 continuing resolution end the shutdown? Yes. The House approved the package by 222 votes to 209 on the evening of 11 November 2026, President Trump signed it at about 9.45pm Eastern time, and federal agencies were expected to begin reopening within hours, with furloughed workers returning to work and back pay to follow.

Will there be another shutdown on 30 January 2027? Not necessarily. That is the date the current continuing resolution runs out. Whether the government shuts down again depends on whether Congress passes the remaining full-year spending bills or another stopgap before then. It is a deadline, not a prediction.

Why is a continuing resolution needed so often? Because Congress has regularly failed to pass all twelve annual spending bills before the financial year begins on 1 October. Continuing resolutions have been used in all but three of the 49 financial years since 1977, which makes the stopgap a routine feature of American government rather than an emergency measure.