2026 Defense Appropriations Act

What this does

This bill funds the Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2026. It appropriates money account by account across military personnel, operation and maintenance, procurement, research and development, revolving funds, the defense health program, and related intelligence agencies. Military personnel pay and benefits alone run to tens of billions per service branch, including $52.5 billion for the Army and $40.1 billion for the Navy. Shipbuilding is funded at $36.9 billion, including the Columbia and Virginia class submarines and two aircraft carriers. The bill grants the Secretary of Defense authority to transfer up to $6 billion between accounts, and the Director of National Intelligence up to $1.5 billion within the National Intelligence Program. It directs $500 million to Israeli cooperative missile-defense programs and $500 million to a Taiwan Security Cooperation Initiative. Beyond funding, the bill carries a block of standing policy riders that bar the Department from spending any of this money on named activities. It prohibits funds for gender-affirming surgery or hormone therapy, for any office of diversity, equity, or inclusion, for programs that advance Critical Race Theory, for enforcing a COVID-19 vaccine requirement on servicemembers, and for drag events on installations or in recruiting. It bars funds from being used to take discriminatory action against a person for holding the belief that marriage is a union of one man and one woman. It bars spending to assist the Azov Battalion, to support the Wuhan Institute of Virology, or to fund EcoHealth Alliance. It reduces the total appropriation by $3.75 billion citing cooperation with the Department of Government Efficiency, and by a further $3 billion tied to a separate reconciliation bill, H.R. 1.