How the Federal Workforce is Impacted During a Government Shutdown (2025 Update)

This analysis was published on Oct. 8, 2025 to reflect the impact of the shutdown that began on Oct. 1, 2025.

Government shutdowns have a profound effect on our nation’s federal employees and the American people—curtailing the ability of civil servants to do their jobs and provide crucial public benefits, conduct scientific research, manage the economy, address national security challenges and more. 

Shutdowns occur when Congress does not pass the necessary appropriations bills to fund government operations. During shutdowns, federal employees are impacted in a variety of ways. Civil servants cannot be paid if the necessary appropriations have not been approved and thus, some federal employees must continue to work without pay for the duration of a shutdown while many others are furloughed until Congress funds government operations. The analysis below shows the size and scope of the federal workforce as well as how it is affected by a shutdown.

Unless otherwise noted, data in this analysis are for the civilian workforce of the executive branch and do not include employees of the legislative or judicial branches, the intelligence community, the U.S. Postal Service, foreign service officers, locally employed staff within the Department of State and uniformed military personnel. Contractors also are not included. Percentages throughout may not appear to add up to 100 due to rounding.

The Federal Workforce by Location

While the federal government is most often closely associated with Washington, D.C. and its suburbs, at least 80% of the civilian federal workforce works outside of the D.C. region. 

Federal civil servants work across all 50 states, as shown on the map below. An additional 276,235 federal employees work across the U.S., but data on their locations is not publicly available due to security reasons. There are also more than 50,000 federal employees who work in U.S. territories and foreign countries, and these employees can also be affected by a shutdown.

Federal Employees During a Shutdown

During a shutdown, federal employees generally fall into three categories: those whose salaries are financed through means other than annual appropriations and who continue to work and be paid; those who are furloughed; and those who continue to work without pay, also known as “excepted” employees. Neither furloughed nor excepted employees receive pay for the duration of a shutdown, although a law passed in 2019 guarantees these employees receive back pay once a shutdown ends. However, the administration has indicated that it may not honor the requirement to provide back pay to furloughed workers.

To prepare for a shutdown, federal agencies publish contingency plans that detail how their operations will be affected if a shutdown occurs—which activities will continue and which will pause until the shutdown ends. These plans also include details of how many agency employees are expected to fall into each of the three categories. 

The visualization below shows the breakdown between the three categories for the largest federal agencies, which together represent around 98% of the federal workforce. The proportion of the workforce in each category varies between agencies, depending on their work and sources of funding. Choose an agency below to see how its workforce is affected by the shutdown.

By law, agencies are required to update their shutdown contingency plans every two years, although they may update them more frequently as needed. The chart below shows historical data from agencies’ 2023 contingency plans. Comparing these plans to current agency shutdown plans reveals differences. For example, in 2023, over 60% of the workforce at the Department of the Treasury was expected to be furloughed in the event of a shutdown, while the agency’s 2025 plans indicate that only about 2% of the workforce will be furloughed. This is due to funding from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act that will enable the IRS workforce to continue working with pay, at least at the beginning of the shutdown. 

Shutdown contingency plans can also provide insight into the changes to the federal workforce due to the Trump administration’s haphazard reduction of the number of federal employees. The chart below compares the size of the agency workforces in the 2023 shutdown plans to the information contained in this year’s plans. While this comparison does not give a full picture of workforce changes, as it encompasses two years and some current shutdown plans use employee counts from as early as March 2025, it gives an indication of how recent reductions have impacted agency workforces.

Active-Duty Service Members During a Shutdown

Civilian federal employees are not the only group affected by shutdowns. Active-duty service members also are affected. During a shutdown, they are required to continue reporting for duty even if they do not receive a paycheck. During the 2018-2019 partial shutdown, Congress approved the Department of Defense appropriations bill and the military was paid except for 42,000 members of the Coast Guard who are funded separately through Department of Homeland Security. This was the first time such a lapse occurred for any active-duty service members. Congress could pass legislation guaranteeing pay for all 1.3 million active-duty military members across the nation and around the world, but no such legislation was in place as of the time of writing this report, which will make the current shutdown the first in which all active-duty military members work without pay. 

The charts below show the breakdown by military branch of the 1.3 million active-duty service members who are not currently being paid during the government shutdown. 

Conclusion

The public deserves a government that delivers on its mission, which requires the important work of the entire federal workforce. The data above highlights the direct impact that a federal government shutdown can have on millions of civilian federal employees and active-duty military personnel. However, these are not the only people impacted by a shutdown. Many federal contractors are adversely affected, forcing more furloughs or layoffs of employees. Additionally, there is the impact on the families of federal employees and military members. Ultimately, shutdowns significantly hamper our government’s ability to provide critical services to the public.

Visit our Cost of the Shutdown tracker to see more information on the impacts of the shutdown.