U.S. Embassies and Consulates

The United States maintains roughly 270 diplomatic posts: embassies in national capitals, consulates and consulates general in other major cities, and missions to international organizations such as the United Nations, NATO, and the European Union. An embassy is led by an ambassador, the President's personal representative, who as chief of mission has authority over every executive-branch employee in the country except those under a military commander.

Embassies house far more than diplomats. A typical embassy country team includes Foreign Service officers handling politics, economics, and consular work, along with representatives of agencies such as Defense, Commerce, Agriculture, Homeland Security, the FBI, the DEA, and the intelligence community. Locally employed staff, citizens of the host country, make up a large share of the workforce. Under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961, embassy premises are inviolable and diplomats enjoy immunity from local prosecution.

Security has shaped embassies since the 1983 Beirut and 1998 East Africa bombings and the 2012 attack in Benghazi, leading to fortified compounds built away from city centers. Embassies are also political symbols: opening one signals recognition, as when the U.S. embassy in Havana reopened in 2015, and moving one can be a policy statement, as with the move to Jerusalem in 2018. Decisions to downsize or close posts, debated again in 2025, involve tradeoffs between cost, security, and diplomatic reach.