President Donald Trump on Wednesday night, November 12, 2025, signed legislation to fund the federal government, ending the longest shutdown in U.S. history after more than 42 days without full-year appropriations.
The White House said the measure would be signed at 9:45 p.m., and officials confirmed shortly afterward that the government would reopen under the new law.
The package keeps most agencies funded at current fiscal year 2025 levels through January 30, giving Congress additional time to negotiate a longer-term appropriations agreement for fiscal 2026.
It also ensures continuity for several programs that faced immediate pressure as the lapse dragged on, reversing planned furloughs and paying affected employees for time missed.
What the new law does
The stopgap measure provides short-term funding across the federal government, maintaining current spending while talks proceed on the remaining annual appropriations bills.
It includes full-year funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, keeping benefits available through September for more than 42 million people who use electronic benefit transfer cards to buy groceries. Agencies are authorized to resume normal operations, recall furloughed personnel and process back pay for federal workers.
Administration officials said the law also reverses layoffs that had been set in motion in early October as agencies prepared for protracted funding uncertainty. With enactment complete, hiring freezes and contract pauses related to the lapse can be unwound, and agencies can restart routine activities that were curtailed during the shutdown.
How Congress moved the bill
After a funding lapse that began Oct. 1, the Senate voted Monday night to advance a bipartisan compromise by a 60–40 margin, with eight Democrats joining Republicans. The House followed on Wednesday, passing its version largely along party lines and sending the legislation to the president’s desk the same evening.
The sequence broke a weeks-long standoff that had paralyzed committee work, floor action and basic services in the Capitol complex.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said earlier Wednesday that the chamber was ready to “close the chapter” on the shutdown once the bill cleared, calling the fight “foolish and pointless in the end.” The House maintained a narrow margin in favor despite dissent from some Republicans over a separate dispute, while Democratic leaders reiterated their frustration with omissions in the measure.
Why the standoff persisted
The principal policy dispute centered on health care. Democrats pressed to extend enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that expire at the end of 2025, arguing that failing to renew them now would raise premiums for families next year and inject uncertainty into the market.
Republicans rejected pairing any partisan policy changes with a funding bill, saying such provisions should be debated in separate legislation.
The parties also clashed over GOP claims that Democrats sought to expand benefits to noncitizens by rolling back elements of a prior law known colloquially among Republicans as the “big, beautiful bill,” which tightened some Medicaid eligibility rules. Democrats said that characterization was false and that their focus was on preserving existing ACA tax credits for Americans purchasing coverage on the exchanges.
A side deal in the Senate, an open question in the House
To secure Monday’s vote, Senate leaders agreed to schedule a December vote on legislation to continue the enhanced ACA credits.
That vote will give subsidy advocates a path to test support in the upper chamber without tying the policy directly to government funding. House leadership has not made a similar commitment, leaving open the question of whether any Senate-passed health measure would receive consideration in the lower chamber before year’s end.
Even without a House guarantee, Democratic senators said the promised vote was a meaningful step toward addressing insurance costs, while House progressives criticized the absence of a binding path forward.
Republican leaders, for their part, said moving the funding bill first was essential to restoring government services and allowing policy debates to proceed on their own timelines.
A late dispute, then a path forward
In the final hours before the House vote, some Republicans objected to a provision allowing senators whose communications were tapped during a special counsel inquiry to sue the federal government for $500,000.
Members including Rep. Chip Roy raised concerns but said they would not block the funding bill over the issue. Speaker Johnson pledged to bring a separate repeal to the floor next week, an assurance that helped secure enough votes to pass the broader package.
Rep. Greg Steube opposed the bill on that point, saying he could not support a measure that would cut checks to lawmakers affected by the probe.
His no vote did not jeopardize final passage, and leadership framed the lawsuit language as a fixable problem that should not prolong the shutdown.
