United States government entered a partial shutdown early on Saturday because lawmakers could not pass all the required funding for the new fiscal year.
Gatekeepers News reports that Congress had been working to approve a package of spending bills to keep most departments open. Still, disagreement over funding for the Department of Homeland Security blocked final approval, and funding ran out at midnight on January 31, 2026.
In the Senate, leaders had agreed to fund most of the government including Defense and Agriculture through September and extend Homeland Security funding for only two weeks, but the House had not voted on the deal before the deadline, forcing the start of shutdown procedures.
Because of the funding lapse, many non-essential federal offices are closing or reducing operations. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers are being told to stay home without pay or work without pay until a budget agreement is finalised.
Essential work like national security, emergency services, air traffic control, and Social Security payments will still run, but services such as passport processing, regulatory agency functions, and parts of national parks may face disruptions or limited access.
The recent conflict in Congress was driven by political disputes over immigration enforcement funding, especially after two U.S. citizens were killed during a Customs and Border Protection operation in Minneapolis.
Democrats in the Senate insisted on changes to how immigration agents are overseen, including demands for body cameras and conduct reforms, and refused to support a full-year Homeland Security funding bill without those changes.
Lawmakers on both sides said they are still negotiating to end the shutdown, but there is no clear timeline for when full government funding will be restored.
Last year, a prolonged standoff over federal spending and healthcare subsidies shut the government for 43 days, the longest shutdown in U.S. history, before a funding deal was finally reached in November 2025.
