crs_reports: R49357

Congressional Research Service reports with summaries, authors, and topic classifications.

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R49357 Judiciary Appropriations, FY2026 2026-09-21T04:00:00Z 2026-09-24T12:38:24Z Active Reports Barry J. McMillion   Funds for the judicial branch are included annually in the Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) appropriations bill. The bill provides funding for the U.S. Supreme Court; the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit; the U.S. Court of International Trade; U.S. courts of appeals and district courts; the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts; the Federal Judicial Center; the U.S. Sentencing Commission; the federal defender organizations that provide legal representation to defendants financially unable to retain counsel in federal criminal proceedings; security and protective services for courthouses, judicial officers, and judicial employees; and fees and allowances paid to jurors. The federal judiciary’s FY2026 budget request was made public by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts on April 25, 2025, one week prior to the release of the President’s FY2026 “skinny budget” on May 2, 2025 (the President’s budget request was formally submitted to Congress on May 30, 2025). Historically, the judiciary’s appropriations request is released without change in a President’s annual budget submission to Congress. The judiciary requested $9.43 billion in discretionary funds for FY2026, an increase of 9.3% over the FY2025 enacted level of $8.63 billion in discretionary funds. The judiciary’s FY2026 budget request also included $872.4 million in mandatory funds to pay the salaries and benefits of certain types of federal judges, as well as provide for judicial retirement accounts. The House FSGG appropriations subcommittee held a hearing on the judiciary’s request on May 14, 2025, and it held a markup of the FSGG appropriations bill on July 21, 2025. The subcommittee recommended $8.94 billion in discretionary funding for the federal judiciary. The same amount was recommended by the House Appropriations Committee, which held its markup on September 3, 2025, and reported an original bill, H.R. 5166, on September 5, 2025. None of the 12 regular appropriations bills for FY2026, including the FSGG bill, were enacted prior to the end of FY2025 on September 30, 2025. Consequently, a lapse in government funding occurred on October 1, 2025, which resulted in a 42-day government shutdown. The federal judiciary was able to continue paid operations through October 17, 2025, using court fee balances and other funds not dependent on a new appropriation. On October 17, 2025, the judiciary announced that it would no longer have funding to sustain full, paid operations, and that federal courts would maintain limited operations needed to perform the judiciary’s constitutional functions. On November 12, 2025, a continuing resolution (CR; the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2026; Division A of P.L. 119-37) provided funding for the judiciary through January 30, 2026. Following the CR’s enactment, the judiciary returned to full, paid operations on November 13, 2025. While amounts included in the CR were generally based on FY2025 spending levels, the resolution included a supplemental amount of $28 million for protection of Supreme Court Justices. The FSGG Senate subcommittee released a draft FSGG appropriations bill and report on November 24, 2025. The subcommittee draft recommended the judiciary receive $9.04 billion in discretionary funds for FY2026. The draft bill was introduced as S. 3290 on December 1, 2025, and referred to the Senate Appropriations Committee. The Senate took no further action on the bill. On January 14, 2026, the House passed H.R. 7006, which consolidated the FSGG appropriations bill with the National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs appropriations bill. Additionally, a joint explanatory statement was placed into the record explaining congressional intent for the legislation. On January 30, 2026, the Senate passed the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026 (H.R. 7148), which included the text of H.R. 7006. After a short lapse in government funding that began on February 1, 2026, the House passed the Senate-amended version of H.R. 7148 on February 3, 2026, and the President signed the legislation on the same date (P.L. 119-75). The enacted legislation provided the judiciary with $9.19 billion in discretionary funds for FY2026. Including the $28 million in supplemental appropriations provided to the judiciary by P.L. 119-37, the total discretionary amount provided to the judiciary for FY2026 was $9.21 billion. https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/PDF/R49357/R49357.3.pdf https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/HTML/R49357.html

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