The Twelve Appropriations Bills

Each year Congress is supposed to pass a set of regular appropriations bills that fund discretionary programs, about a quarter of federal spending, totaling roughly $1.8 trillion. The House and Senate Appropriations Committees each have 12 subcommittees, aligned in both chambers since 2007, and each subcommittee writes one bill. The number has changed over time with reorganizations of the committees, from 13 bills for much of the late twentieth century to the current 12.

The 12 bills are Agriculture-FDA, Commerce-Justice-Science, Defense, Energy and Water Development, Financial Services and General Government, Homeland Security, Interior-Environment, Labor-HHS-Education, Legislative Branch, Military Construction-Veterans Affairs, State-Foreign Operations, called National Security and State in the House, and Transportation-HUD. The Defense bill is by far the largest, followed by Labor-HHS-Education, the largest nondefense bill.

Congress rarely passes all 12 separately and on time. It last did so for fiscal 1997, and in most years it combines unfinished bills into omnibus or minibus packages or extends funding with continuing resolutions, sometimes for a full year. The shutdown that began on October 1, 2025, ended in November with a law that enacted three full-year bills and extended the rest under a continuing resolution. Three more bills were signed on January 23, 2026, five more on February 3, 2026 after a brief lapse, and the Homeland Security bill on April 30, 2026 after a 76-day lapse in that department's funding, with immigration enforcement funded separately through a reconciliation law. Supporters of regular order say passing each bill separately allows real scrutiny of every agency, while others say the practical demands of a divided Congress make packaging unavoidable.