U.S. Territories

The United States has five permanently inhabited territories: Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands in the Caribbean, and Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa in the Pacific, with about 3.6 million residents combined. It also holds several largely uninhabited islands and atolls, including Wake Island, Midway Atoll, and Palmyra Atoll. Article IV gives Congress power to make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory and other property of the United States, and the Interior Department's Office of Insular Affairs coordinates federal policy toward most territories.

Under the Insular Cases, territories are classified as incorporated, meaning destined for statehood with the Constitution fully applicable, or unincorporated, where only fundamental rights apply. All inhabited territories today are unincorporated. They are also described as organized, if Congress passed an organic act establishing their government, or unorganized, like American Samoa. Each elects its own governor and legislature and sends a nonvoting delegate or resident commissioner to the House, who can vote in committees but not on final passage.

Residents of four territories are U.S. citizens by statute, while American Samoans are U.S. nationals. Territorial residents cannot vote for President in general elections, though they participate in party primaries, and many federal programs, such as Medicaid and Supplemental Security Income, treat territories differently than states, a disparity the Supreme Court upheld in United States v. Vaello Madero in 2022. The United States also maintains Compacts of Free Association with Palau, Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands, renewed in 2024, which are independent nations rather than territories. Debates over statehood, independence, voting rights, and equal treatment continue.