A federal employee earning $100,000 a year has about $385 in gross pay put on hold for every workday the government is shut down. Over a 35-day lapse, the length of the 2018-19 shutdown, that's roughly $9,600 held up before back pay arrives. The House has now passed the short-term funding bill the Senate cleared earlier by a wide margin, and it heads to President Trump. Once he signs, agencies stay open, civilians stay on the job, and service members keep drawing pay on schedule. The $385 stays in your paycheck.
A stopgap only moves the deadline. Here's how one works, and what's at stake when one fails.
By the Numbers
- $384.62: gross pay per workday at a $100,000 salary ($100,000 ÷ 260 paid weekdays)
- $3,846: gross pay in one biweekly pay period at that salary
- About $9,600: gross pay delayed across a 35-day shutdown (roughly 25 workdays)
- About $11,900: gross pay delayed across a 43-day shutdown (about 31 workdays). That was the 2025 lapse, the longest on record.
- 60: votes needed in the Senate to end debate on most spending bills
- Oct. 1: the start of the federal fiscal year, and the usual cliff date
- 0: back-pay guarantees for federal contractor employees
How it works
Federal agencies can't spend money Congress hasn't appropriated. Congress is supposed to pass 12 regular appropriations bills each year, covering everything from the Defense Department to the Interior Department, before the fiscal year starts on October 1. It almost never finishes on time.
The fallback is a continuing resolution, or CR. A CR is a temporary spending bill that generally keeps agencies funded at the prior year's rate through a set date. It typically bars new programs and major changes in spending, though it can carry specific exceptions Congress calls anomalies. Check the expiration date. That's the new cliff.
If neither a CR nor full-year bills are enacted, funding lapses and the Antideficiency Act (31 U.S.C. § 1341) kicks in. The law bars agencies from obligating money they don't have, and it bars accepting voluntary services. Each agency then follows its lapse plan, filed with the Office of Management and Budget, which sorts employees into two buckets:
- Furloughed: sent home, no work, no pay during the lapse.
- Excepted: required to work because their jobs involve protecting life or property, or are funded another way. They work, but their paychecks stall.
Excepted doesn't mean paid. Border Patrol agents, air traffic controllers, TSA officers, and federal prison staff have all worked through lapses without a paycheck.
Back pay is now guaranteed by statute. The Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019 (Public Law 116-1) requires that both furloughed and excepted federal employees be paid retroactively, as soon as practicable after the lapse ends. That settles the outcome, not the timing. You can wait weeks for your money while rent, car payments, and childcare come due on schedule.
The Senate is the hard part. Most spending bills need 60 votes to cut off debate, so a stopgap generally needs support from both parties. A wide Senate margin, as in this case, is the usual sign a bill is safe. Once both chambers pass identical text, the president has 10 days, excluding Sundays, to sign it or the bill becomes law without his signature while Congress is in session.
A worked example
Take a hypothetical GS employee earning $100,000 a year, paid biweekly. The numbers are round on purpose, so you can swap in your own.
Step 1: daily pay. $100,000 ÷ 260 = $384.62 gross per workday.
Step 2: a 35-day lapse. That's five calendar weeks, about 25 workdays. 25 × $384.62 = $9,615 gross, or two and a half pay periods.
Step 3: what you actually miss. A biweekly paycheck is $3,846 gross. Take-home is lower after taxes, FEHB premiums, TSP contributions, and retirement withholding. But the bills are due on the net figure, and net pay just stops arriving. Two missed paychecks and half of a third is a real cash-flow hole.
Step 4: the carrying cost. Say you cover a $5,000 gap on a credit card at 24% APR. That's about $100 a month in interest, and Congress doesn't reimburse it. Back pay covers your wages, not your finance charges.
Step 5: the back-pay catch-up. Once the lapse ends, the agency's payroll provider has to reprocess. Under the 2019 law the money is owed, and it usually shows up in a lump on a later check. You're made whole on wages and out of pocket on everything in between.
A service member's version is simpler. Take a hypothetical E-5 with $4,000 a month in basic pay. Military pay lands on the 1st and 15th, so each payday is about $2,000 in basic pay, before allowances. In past lapses, Congress or the Pentagon has had to act to keep troops paid. The Pay Our Military Act in 2013 covered that lapse, and in 2025 the administration moved money around to cover military paychecks. Neither was automatic. When a CR passes, the question never comes up.
Who is affected, and by how much
Furloughed civilians. You lose the work and the paycheck for the duration, and recover wages later. In the 2018-19 lapse, roughly 800,000 federal workers were furloughed or working unpaid. At $385 a day, the paycheck delay for the average case is about a month's salary or more.
Excepted civilians. You work, you carry the same commute and childcare costs, and you wait. The dollar delay is identical to a furloughed colleague's. You're just working through it.
Service members. Active-duty troops are excepted and keep working. Reserve and Guard drill pay can be disrupted when drills are canceled. In a lapse, pay depends on a separate legislative or administrative fix. A signed CR removes that risk.
Contractors. No safety net here. The 2019 law covers federal employees, not contractor staff. When agencies issue stop-work orders, many contractor employees are furloughed by their employers and never recover those wages. Whether a company pays them anyway is the company's call, and many can't afford to.
Retirees and annuitants. Annuity payments generally keep flowing. What stalls is new business: OPM's processing of incoming retirement applications slows during lapses, so a new retiree can end up on interim payments while the full annuity is calculated. If you're planning a separation date, build a cushion for that.
Families and local economies. Shutdowns hit towns near large installations and agency offices. Every dollar delayed from a paycheck is a dollar not spent at the local restaurant, daycare, or hardware store.
How to estimate your own
Take your annual salary and divide by 260 for your daily gross. Multiply by the number of workdays you can't afford to go unpaid. That's your exposure. If you're within a year or two of retiring, a shutdown can also interfere with the timing of your first full annuity payment. Use the FERS retirement calculator to see what your annuity should be, so you know how much any interim payment falls short and how big a cash buffer to hold.
Then build the buffer. A common rule of thumb for feds is to hold at least one full pay period of net take-home in cash. Two periods is safer if your agency has a history of excepted work during lapses.
FAQ
Does the CR give me a raise or change my pay? No. A CR keeps agencies funded at the prior year's rate. It doesn't change pay tables. Your pay is governed by separate statute and the annual pay-adjustment process, and it continues while the CR is in effect.
If the bill passes, can there still be a shutdown? Yes, when the CR expires. Funding runs only through the date written in the bill. If Congress hasn't passed another CR or full-year appropriations by then, funding lapses again.
Will I get back pay if there's a lapse anyway? If you're a federal employee, yes. The Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019 guarantees it for furloughed and excepted workers alike. Contractors aren't covered. And back pay arrives after the lapse, not during it.
What if I'm paid from user fees or multi-year money? Some agencies and programs have funding that carries over or isn't tied to annual appropriations, so they can keep operating for a while. Your agency's lapse plan, posted on its website, says which employees are covered and for how long.
Does a shutdown affect my health insurance? Generally no. FEHB coverage continues, and premiums are still owed. When paychecks stop, premiums are typically collected from back pay later. Check your agency's HR guidance for the details.
Bottom line
A signed CR means no paycheck gap, no furloughs, and no scramble over military pay. It also means the clock restarts. For a federal worker at $100,000, the stake in the next deadline is about $385 for every workday of delay, and nearly $9,600 over a month-plus lapse. The back pay is guaranteed. The timing isn't. Know your bill's expiration date, keep a pay-period cushion, and treat any stopgap as a deadline with a new date on it.