If the government shuts down on Wednesday, hundreds of thousands of workers will be sent home without pay, disrupting a wide range of federal programs. Despite the imminent deadline, not all agencies have released contingency plans for how they would operate. Here’s what we know so far.

Agency	Total employees	Planned furloughs	Share
General Services Administration	240	234	98%
	2,447	2,117	87%
	42,984	34,711	81%
	12,916	9,775	76%
	26,995	16,651	62%
Defense (civilian workforce)	741,477	334,904	45%
Health and Human Services	79,717	32,460	41%
	51,825	6,197	12%
	115,131	12,840	11%
Office of Personnel Management	2,007	210	10%
	271,927	14,184	5%
	461,499	14,874	3%

Sources: Official government agency websites

Data does not necessarily reflect the most up-to-date employment numbers for an agency’s total work force; some agencies provided numbers based on personnel data from as early as March 2025.

The impacts will vary from department to department. Some services and programs will continue mostly uninterrupted if they are self-funded or considered “mandatory” spending, such as the Postal Service and Social Security benefits.

Some employees will be required to report to work during the shutdown, and many will do so without pay until funding is restored. This includes workers deemed “essential” to protecting life and property, such as federal law enforcement officers, active-duty troops and air traffic controllers.

Some shutdowns have ended after a few days, but this impasse is particularly contentious. The White House also threatened last week to use a shutdown to carry out another round of mass firings.