Here’s a look at federal agencies’ shutdown contingency plans

As the government enters a shutdown, Federal News Network has compiled the need-to-know information from each agency’s contingency plans.

Stephanie Wright

September 30, 2025 2:49 pm

< a min read

Editor’s Note: This post was updated at 12:01 p.m. on Wednesday, October 1, 2025 to reflect the current shutdown state of the government. The included Datawrapper chart is also being continuously updated to include more agencies’ contingency plans.

As of 12:01 a.m. Wednesday morning, the federal government has run out of congressional appropriations and entered a shutdown. Each  agency has prepared its own contingency plan to outline how its staff will proceed and which operations will continue under the shutdown.

Federal News Network has compiled information from all currently available federal agency contingency plans. The Office of Management and Budget has stated it is not compiling this information on its own website, as it has in years past. OMB instead directed users to visit individual agency’s websites to find guidance.

In a Tuesday letter to Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) regarding the impacts of a potential shutdown, Congressional Budget Office Director Phillip Swagel wrote, “Using information from the agencies’ contingency plans and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), CBO estimates that under a lapse in discretionary funding for fiscal year 2026 about 750,000 employees could be furloughed each day; the total daily cost of their compensation would be roughly $400 million.”

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