Shutdown Fairness Act
Official title: To appropriate funds for pay and allowances of excepted Federal employees for periods of work performed during a lapse in appropriations, and for other purposes.
Have a question about what this bill does? Ask in plain English; the answer is drawn from the bill's actual text and official record, and it'll tell you when something isn't in the text rather than guess.
Referred to the House Committee on Appropriations.
Shutdown Fairness Act
This bill provides appropriations to pay federal employees who work during a government shutdown.
Specifically, the bill provides appropriations for federal agencies to provide standard rates of pay, allowances, pay differentials, benefits, and other payments to excepted employees for work performed during any period in which interim continuing appropriations or full-year appropriations are not in effect for a fiscal year (i.e., a government shutdown). An excepted employee is an employee who is required to work during a government shutdown.
Under current law, excepted employees are not paid until the government shutdown is over. This bill provides appropriations to pay excepted employees during a government shutdown. The bill also specifies that the term excepted employee includes certain contractors who support federal employees during a government shutdown and members of the Armed Forces who are on active duty.
A federal agency may not use the funds provided by this bill during any period in which continuing appropriations are in effect for the purpose of paying excepted employees of the agency.
The bill must take effect as if it had been enacted on September 30, 2025.
- Introduced in House Formatted Text PDF Formatted XML
- AMERICAN SPEECH-LANGUAGE-HEARING ASSOCIATION
- NATIONAL TREASURY EMPLOYEES UNION
- FEDERAL MANAGERS ASSOCIATION
- NATIONAL TREASURY EMPLOYEES UNION
- AMERICAN SPEECH-LANGUAGE-HEARING ASSOCIATION
- FEDERAL MANAGERS ASSOCIATION
Bodies those filers lobbied
- HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
- SENATE
- Food & Drug Administration (FDA)
- Health & Human Services, Dept of (HHS)
- Labor, Dept of (DOL)
- Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
- Administration on Aging
- Centers For Disease Control & Prevention (CDC)
Cite this page
U.S. Congress. (2026). H.R. 5801: Shutdown Fairness Act. 119th Congress. Open America. https://openamerica.io/bill/119-HR-5801/
"H.R. 5801: Shutdown Fairness Act." 119th Congress, 2026, Open America, https://openamerica.io/bill/119-HR-5801/.
H.R. 5801, 119th Cong. (2026), https://openamerica.io/bill/119-HR-5801/.
[H.R. 5801: Shutdown Fairness Act](https://openamerica.io/bill/119-HR-5801/)