There are twelve annual appropriations bills. Together they fund every discretionary operation of the federal government, from the Pentagon to national parks to the FBI, and each one must pass the House and the Senate and be signed by the President every year.
The twelve bills
Each bill is written by one subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee in each chamber, and the subcommittees mirror each other across the House and Senate. The twelve are Agriculture and FDA; Commerce, Justice, and Science; Defense; Energy and Water; Financial Services and General Government; Homeland Security; Interior and Environment; Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education; Legislative Branch; Military Construction and Veterans Affairs; National Security and State (the House's new name for the bill the Senate still calls State and Foreign Operations); and Transportation and Housing.
Why twelve
The number is not in the Constitution. It reflects how the Appropriations Committees have organized their work since a 2007 reshuffle settled the current lineup. Each subcommittee holds its own hearings, writes its own bill, and marks it up before the full committee takes it. Subcommittee chairs hold so much sway over their slice of the budget that Washington calls them the cardinals.
How much they cover
The twelve bills carry roughly $1,640,000,000,000 in discretionary spending for fiscal year 2026, about a quarter of the total federal budget. The rest is mandatory spending like Social Security, Medicare, and interest on the debt, which runs on permanent law and never comes up for an annual vote. The Defense bill alone accounts for about half of the discretionary total.
Where each one stands right now
The live status of all twelve bills, in both chambers, is on the tracker. Each bill has its own page with its latest action, votes, and the projects written into it. When Congress cannot finish them by September 30, it passes a continuing resolution to keep the government funded while it keeps working.
Minibuses and omnibuses
The twelve bills do not always pass one at a time. Congress often bundles several into a package called a minibus, or all of them into a single omnibus, usually late in the cycle when time runs short. The archive shows which vehicle carried each bill in every year since FY2020.