Skip to main content
CivicGate

HR 5401
Introduced Re-checks Congress.gov for new actions and updates the bill's status, and fills in any sponsors, committees, or related bills that are missing. It does not re-pull sponsors/cosponsors/committees/related — those rarely change — and it skips all work if nothing has changed upstream, so it's cheap to click.

Pay Our Troops Act of 2026

Making continuing appropriations for military pay in the event of a Government shutdown.

Introduced Sep 16, 2025

Latest action (Sep 16, 2025) Referred to the House Committee on Appropriations.

Issues
Defense

Summary

This bill would ensure that active-duty military members, military reserves, and certain Department of Defense and Coast Guard civilian employees and contractors continue to receive pay during a government shutdown. The bill appropriates funds from the Treasury for fiscal year 2026 to cover these payments if regular appropriations are not in effect. The funding would cover pay and allowances for military personnel and designated support personnel and contractors. The appropriations would end once regular appropriations are enacted or by January 1, 2027, whichever comes first.

AI-generated plain-language summary of the bill text — neutral, and may be imperfect. See the full text below for the exact wording.

Sponsor (1)

210 cosponsors

Actions (2)

  1. Sep 16, 2025 Referred to the House Committee on Appropriations. · house
  2. Sep 16, 2025 Introduced in House

Similar bills (6)

Bills with similar text or summary — includes reintroductions across Congresses. Ranked by semantic similarity of the bill text (computed locally); a neutral discovery aid, not a claim the bills are duplicates.

Text versions (1)

  • Introduced in House · Sep 16, 2025

Only one text version is on file, so there’s no earlier version to compare against yet.

Full text

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

September 16, 2025

Mrs. Kiggans of Virginia (for herself, Mr. Fitzpatrick, Ms. Mace, Mr. Kean, Mr. Crenshaw, Mr. Nunn of Iowa, Mrs. Luna, Ms. Perez, Mr. Moylan, Mr. Ciscomani, Mr. Wittman, Ms. Boebert, Mr. Mills, Mr. Huizenga, Mr. Ezell, Mr. Messmer, Mr. Loudermilk, Mr. Bacon, Mr. Pappas, Mr. Van Orden, Mr. Tran, Mr. Moulton, Mr. Murphy, Mr. Graves, Mr. McCormick, Mr. Gimenez, Mr. Crank, Mr. Bell, Mr. Davis of North Carolina, Mr. Turner of Ohio, Mr. Strong, Mr. Bresnahan, Ms. Tenney, Mr. Schmidt, Mr. Stauber, Mr. Golden of Maine, Mr. Bean of Florida, Mr. Newhouse, Mr. McGuire, Mr. Webster of Florida, Mr. Hurd of Colorado, Mr. Hamadeh of Arizona, Ms. Goodlander, Mr. Kelly of Pennsylvania, Mr. Scott Franklin of Florida, Mr. Luttrell, Mrs. Harshbarger, Mr. Feenstra, Mr. Finstad, and Mr. Self) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Appropriations

A BILL

Making continuing appropriations for military pay in the event of a Government shutdown.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the “Pay Our Troops Act of 2026”.

SEC. 2. CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS FOR MEMBERS OF THE ARMED FORCES.

(a) In General.—There are hereby appropriated for fiscal year 2026, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, for any period during which interim or full-year appropriations for fiscal year 2026 are not in effect—

(1) such sums as are necessary to provide pay and allowances to members of the Armed Forces (as defined in section 101(a)(4) of title 10, United States Code), including reserve components thereof, who perform active service during such period;

(2) such sums as are necessary to provide pay and allowances to the civilian personnel of the Department of Defense (and the Department of Homeland Security in the case of the Coast Guard) whom the Secretary concerned determines are providing support to members of the Armed Forces described in paragraph (1); and

(3) such sums as are necessary to provide pay and allowances to contractors of the Department of Defense (and the Department of Homeland Security in the case of the Coast Guard) whom the Secretary concerned determines are providing support to members of the Armed Forces described in paragraph (1).

(b) Secretary Concerned Defined.—In this section, the term “Secretary concerned” means—

(1) the Secretary of Defense with respect to matters concerning the Department of Defense; and

(2) the Secretary of Homeland Security with respect to matters concerning the Coast Guard.

SEC. 3. TERMINATION.

Appropriations and funds made available and authority granted pursuant to this Act shall be available until whichever of the following first occurs:

(1) The enactment into law of an appropriation (including a continuing appropriation) for any purpose for which amounts are made available in section 2.

(2) The enactment into law of the applicable regular or continuing appropriations resolution or other Act without any appropriation for such purpose.

(3) January 1, 2027. <all>

Comments

Comments

Loading comments…