How to read these plans
OMB Circular A-11, section 124, requires each agency to keep a plan for a lapse in appropriations. The plan sorts every employee into one of two groups:
- Exempt employees are paid from money that did not lapse—user fees, multiyear or advance appropriations, or mandatory funding. They keep working and keep being paid on schedule.
- Excepted employees are paid from the lapsed appropriation but must keep working because their duties protect life and property, are authorized by law, or are needed for an orderly shutdown. They work without pay until the lapse ends.
Everyone else is furloughed: placed in non-duty, non-pay status and barred from working, even as volunteers. After the lapse, both excepted and furloughed employees receive back pay under the 2019 Government Employee Fair Treatment Act. Estimate yours with the back pay calculator.
Why the share varies so much
The share furloughed says more about how an agency is funded than about how important its work is. Veterans Affairs furloughed about 3% because VA medical care is funded a year in advance. Social Security retained nearly nine in ten employees to keep benefits flowing. Homeland Security kept 92% working, but most of them—TSA officers, Border Patrol agents, and CBP officers among them—were excepted and worked without pay. At the other end, the Environmental Protection Agency, NASA, and Education rely almost entirely on annual appropriations and have relatively few law-enforcement or safety functions.
The numbers are a starting point, not a final count. Several agencies, including the Patent and Trademark Office and Energy, kept working on carryover balances or fees for days or weeks, then furloughed more staff when that money ran out. Others recalled employees as a lapse grew longer—for example to process payments or reopen services. Agencies that already have full-year funding when a lapse begins do not shut down at all; that is how a partial shutdown happens.
What to expect for the December 11 deadline
Funding under P.L. 119-103 runs through December 11, 2026. As of October 28, 2026, we found no agency plan dated for that deadline. Several agencies revised their plans before the January 30, 2026 lapse—Labor, Treasury’s Departmental Offices, OPM, and the Executive Office of the President among them—so the plan on an agency’s site may be newer than the 2025 figures above. Staffing has also changed since 2025, so headcounts in new plans will differ.
If none of the 12 FY2027 bills is enacted before the deadline, every agency in the table would follow its plan again. If some bills are enacted, only the agencies they do not cover would. Follow each bill in the FY2027 appropriations tracker.
Sources
Figures come from each agency’s plan document, linked in the table, and were checked on October 28, 2026. OMB hosts only the Executive Office of the President’s plans and links to agency sites for the rest.