The longest government shutdown in U.S. history could end as soon as Wednesday evening, as the Republican-led House is poised to approve a spending package that would restore funding to large parts of the federal government, sending the measure to President Donald Trump, who has said he will sign it.
The expected vote in the House comes two days after the Senate passed the stopgap spending package by a 60-40 margin, with eight Senators breaking ranks with Democrats to vote with nearly all Republicans to break the filibuster threshold. Their support came despite the absence of the party’s chief demand: a guarantee that expiring tax credits for Affordable Care Act health plans would be extended beyond December.
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Read more: What the End of Obamacare Subsidies Could Mean for Your Health Coverage
The measure funds the government through Jan. 30 and includes full-year appropriations for military construction, agriculture and the legislative branch. It also reverses layoffs that the Trump Administration tried to implement during the shutdown and commits Republican leaders to hold a vote by mid-December on extending the health insurance subsidies.
“This has been a very long road—quite literally the longest shutdown in history,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune. “I am very, very happy to be able to say that we are coming to the end.”
President Trump, who had publicly encouraged his party to stand firm against Democratic demands, endorsed the compromise, which includes a provision barring his Administration from firing additional federal workers through January. “I will abide by the deal,” he told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday. “The deal is very good.”
The House plans to vote on the Senate-passed bill to reopen the federal government as early as 4 p.m., according to a notice from Majority Whip Tom Emmer. It will be the House’s first vote since mid-September, when lawmakers departed Washington after passing a separate version of the spending bill.
House Speaker Mike Johnson has urged members to fly back quickly despite widespread travel disruptions that have snarled air traffic nationwide. “It appears to us that our long national nightmare is finally coming to an end,” he told reporters Monday. “And we’re grateful for that.”
With Republicans holding a fragile 219-to-213 majority—a margin that will shrink further when Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva, a Democrat from Arizona, is sworn in Wednesday seven weeks after her election—Johnson can afford to lose no more than two votes if all lawmakers are present. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a libertarian-leaning Republican who has long opposed stopgap funding bills, is expected to vote no, but nearly all other Republicans are expected to fall in line behind the deal after Trump’s endorsement.
The House vote will mark Congress’ final act in a fiscal drama that shuttered vast swaths of the federal government, from air traffic control towers to food assistance programs. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers went without pay for nearly two months, many relying on savings or community food drives. Air travel slowed, federal courts postponed hearings, and SNAP benefits were rationed in some states.
The immediate relief will be tangible: agencies will reopen, back pay will flow to employees, and benefits like the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) nutrition program will resume normal operations. But the effects of the shutdown could linger another week or two, especially in the nation’s strained aviation system as some air traffic controllers who worked without pay are considering leaving the profession altogether.
The long-term political recovery could take even longer. While the bill’s passage would bring an end to an episode that battered both parties’ approval ratings, it also postponed the underlying conflict that caused it. The Senate-passed stopgap measure expires Jan. 30, forcing lawmakers to resume negotiations almost immediately on a broader spending package—and on the same issue that eluded them this time.
Democrats aren’t the only ones frustrated with the lack of progress on the health care subsidies. Some vulnerable Republicans are also uneasy about the shutdown ending without addressing the sensitive issue, aware that higher insurance premiums could become a potent campaign issue in the months ahead. A bipartisan quartet of House lawmakers—including Republican Reps. Don Bacon of Nebraska and Jeff Hurd of Colorado—released a “statement of principles” last week urging a two-year extension of the subsidies with income limits on eligibility. Rep. Jen Kiggans, a first-term Republican from Virginia, co-sponsored a separate bill to extend the credits for one year before the shutdown began.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the conservative MAGA firebrand from Georgia, added more pressure on her party last month when she sided with Democrats in calling for an extension of the expiring Obamacare subsidies to avoid premium hikes. “I’m going to go against everyone on this issue because when the tax credits expire this year my own adult children’s insurance premiums for 2026 are going to DOUBLE, along with all the wonderful families and hard-working people in my district,” Greene posted on X.
Yet even as cracks emerged on the right, House Democrats remain largely opposed to ending the shutdown this way, and are expected to vote against the Senate-passed measure almost unanimously. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, said Monday that the Senate plan amounted to “a partisan Republican spending bill that continues to gut the health care of the American people.” The centrist New Democrat Coalition, one of the party’s largest caucuses, announced its opposition the same day, saying the bill “fails to address our constituents’ top priorities, doing nothing to protect their access to health care or lower their costs.” Rep. Greg Casar of Texas, the chair of the Progressive Caucus, called it “a betrayal of millions of Americans counting on Democrats to fight for them.”
Still, a handful of moderates from swing districts have signaled they may back the package. Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, who represents a rural Trump-leaning district and recently said he would not seek re-election, is likely to support it after he voted in favor of the House Republican spending plan in September. Moderate Reps. Henry Cuellar of Texas and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, both of whom represent politically divided constituencies, have also previously expressed support for the plan. “It’s past time to put country over party and get our government working again for the American people,” Cuellar posted on X on Sunday.
Perhaps most concerning for Democrats was that on Monday night, the Senate voted 47-53 along party lines not to extend the ACA subsidies for one year—a potential preview of how the promised mid-December vote will unfold.
The eight Democrats who helped push the bill through the Senate defended their decision as a pragmatic step to reopen the government and restore stability. All are either retiring or not facing voters next year, freeing them from the electoral pressures confronting colleagues who held out.
Progressive activists were less forgiving. Organizations like MoveOn and Indivisible accused senators of surrendering leverage and announced they would support primary challengers against Democrats who voted for the bill or, in some cases, against Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, for not doing more to stop it.
Trump, for his part, appeared content to claim victory and move on. At a Veterans Day event on Tuesday, he congratulated Thune and Johnson for the soon-to-be-approved funding bill. “We’re opening up our country,” he said. “Should have never been closed.”