US federal government shuts down amid funding standstill

The US federal government has shut down after Democrats and Republicans failed to agree on a stopgap funding bill. Follow DW for more.

The US federal government has shut down. This comes after the Senate failed to pass a stopgap measure to temporarily fund the government. It is the first shutdown in almost seven years.

Gold hits record as US shutdown triggers market fears

Gold has surged to a record high, and Wall Street futures slipped even before the US government entered shutdown. The precious metal, seen as a safe haven, peaked at $3,875.53 before the shutdown.

Futures for the Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq — betting on where such indexes will go when trading resumes — were all lower, with the Dow retreating from a record. The threat of federal services closing has overshadowed optimism that the US Federal Reserve could cut interest rates again. The shutdown may also delay key economic data used for policy decisions on any cut.

Goldman Sachs Research noted markets have historically weathered such crises, with equities ending flat or higher at the close of the three prolonged shutdowns since the early 1990s, despite early declines. Asian equities have mostly held firm despite the US government shutdown. Markets in Singapore, Seoul, Wellington, Taipei, Manila, Mumbai, Bangkok, and Jakarta all closed higher, although Tokyo and Sydney slipped.

US federal government shuts down

The US federal government has officially entered a shutdown as Democratic and Republican lawmakers have failed to reach a funding deal. US President Donald Trump's administration has threatened mass federal layoffs in the case of a shutdown. The shutdown brings uncertainty not only for federal workers but also for the US economy as a whole. Here's an explainer from DW on what the shutdown actually means.

National parks to put two-thirds of staff on leave, keep parks mostly open

The National Park Service plans to furlough some 9,200 people, nearly two-thirds of its employees, during the federal shutdown, according to a contingency plan released hours before the shutdown was due to start. The plan says "park roads, lookouts, trails, and open-air memorials will generally remain accessible to visitors." Sites could close if they are being damaged or if there is too much garbage, according to the plan.

The park service has more than 400 sites, including popular parks such as the Great Smoky Mountains, Zion, Yellowstone, and the Grand Canyon. Ahead of this shutdown, the National Parks Conservation Association warned against leaving parks open again as it leaves them vulnerable to damage. Many national parks stayed open during a 35-day shutdown in Trump's first term. The impacts of this were "devastating," the group warned, listing at times "irreparable" damage, including the vandalizing of ancient petroglyphs, theft of artifacts from battlefields, and the cutting down of century-old trees.

Fat Bear Week winner 2025 announced ahead of schedule to avoid shutdown

A towering brown bear called Chunk has swept the competition in the wildly popular Fat Bear Week contest. Chunk beat out 11 other bears to be voted the most popular chunky bear at Alaska's Katmai National Park and Preserve. He is estimated to weigh around 1,200 pounds (544 kilos) by the US National Parks Service, which organizes the contest.

Bear 856 came second in what the service called a "heavyweight showdown" between "two titans of tub." Voting for the Fat Bear winner is normally held in the first week of October. The contest was held earlier this year to avoid having to close the competition in case of a shutdown. It attracted over 1.5 million votes this year from fans who watched the bears via live video cam as they gorge on salmon.

What does the US federal government shutdown mean?

While the exact repercussions aren't yet clear, under a shutdown, nonessential government operations grind to a halt. This means hundreds of thousands of federal government workers will temporarily be without pay. It could also disrupt the payment of some social safety-net benefits.

Federal agencies have drawn up contingency plans if funding is suspended. Among other things, those plans specify what offices would stay open and which employees would be furloughed. Ahead of the shutdown, the National Transportation Safety Board, for example, said it would temporarily suspend a quarter of its staff. But other government functions, such as NASA's space missions and border protection, will continue.

The White House itself has suggested that a shutdown could lead to large-scale layoffs across the government. "So we'd be laying off a lot of people that are going to be very affected. And they're Democrats, they're going to be Democrats," Trump said late on Tuesday before the shutdown came into effect. The move would add to the pain of government workers after large-scale firings orchestrated by billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, earlier this year.

Why couldn't the Republicans and Democrats agree on a funding bill?

Although the Democrats are in the minority in the Senate, the Republicans didn't have enough of a majority to pass a federal government funding bill without the Democrats. Democrats wanted to use this leverage to get the Trump administration to reinstate hundreds of billions of dollars in health care spending for low-income households. Republicans refused to negotiate on this.

Ahead of the shutdown, members of both parties angrily blamed each other for the stalemate. "It's only the president who can do this. We know he runs the show here," Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday, after a meeting between top Republican and Democrat leaders at the White House failed to find an agreement. "Republicans have until midnight tonight to get serious with us," Schumer said.

US President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans said they wouldn't entertain any changes to the legislation, arguing that it's a stripped-down, "clean" bill that should be noncontroversial. Trump also posted an AI-generated deepfake video slamming Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. The clip mocked Jeffries and Schumer in vulgar terms, falsely depicting them announcing plans to entice illegal immigrants with benefits, while showing Jeffries wearing a sombrero and bushy mustache as mariachi music plays.

Why is the federal government now facing a shutdown?

Congress failed to agree on Tuesday on a bill that would have temporarily determined federal government spending beyond Tuesday, the end of the government's fiscal year. In the United States, the federal government's fiscal year runs from October 1 to September 30.

Congress is made up of two chambers — the House of Representatives and the Senate. The 100-member Senate requires 60 votes to pass government funding bills. Republicans hold 53 seats in the Senate, while the Democrats have 47. Assuming all Republicans supported the bill, this meant they needed at least seven Democrat votes to pass a stopgap bill already passed by the House that would have funded the federal government from October 1 to November 21. But they failed to gain these extra votes.

The last shutdown came during Trump's first presidential term, when government functions were halted for 35 days beginning December 2018.