Executive Order 14356 bars filling any vacant Federal civilian position and bars creating any new position unless the order or applicable law allows it. The order was signed Oct. 15, 2025, and published in the Federal Register on Oct. 20, 2025.
The order says the policy covers executive departments and agencies no matter how they are funded. It states that Federal hiring must follow a Merit Hiring Plan issued May 29, 2025, by the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy and the Director of the Office of Personnel Management. That plan followed an earlier order of Jan. 20, 2025.
Within 30 days of the order, each agency head must set up a Strategic Hiring Committee to approve creating or filling each vacancy. The committee must include the deputy agency head and the agency head’s chief of staff, plus other senior officials the agency head may name. After approving hires, committees must give written notice to the Office of Personnel Management. The order says the committees are to keep hiring consistent with the national interest, agency needs, and administration priorities.
Within 60 days, each agency must prepare an Annual Staffing Plan with the Office of Personnel Management and the Office of Management and Budget, then submit the final plan to both offices. The order says the plans are to place new career appointments in the highest-need areas for the coming fiscal year. Agencies must follow those plans during the year, though they may revise them after relevant appropriations or authorizing laws, or otherwise amend them with those two offices. Going forward, agencies must prepare such plans, with both offices, for the start of each fiscal year.
Agencies must send progress updates to both offices at the start of each quarter, beginning with the second quarter of fiscal year 2026.
The order lists categories it does not cover. Those include the Executive Office of the President and its components; non-career posts that need a presidential appointment or Senate confirmation; non-career Senior Executive Service posts; Schedule C or Schedule G posts in the excepted service; military personnel of the Armed Forces; and posts related to immigration enforcement, national security, or public safety. It also excludes appointments under a temporary-organization hiring authority in federal personnel law.
The order does not limit other non-career hiring if an agency head the President named, or another official the President named, approves it. It does not limit hiring that the head of an executive department specifically approves. The personnel office may let the head of an independent establishment use that exception. The order also does not limit hiring where a limit would conflict with applicable law.
The Director of the Office of Personnel Management may grant exemptions. Exemptions that office already granted under presidential memoranda of Jan. 20, 2025, and July 7, 2025, stay in effect unless the office withdraws them.
The order prohibits contracting outside the Federal Government to get around its intent. It does not bar reallocations or reassignments to meet the highest-priority needs, keep essential services, and protect national security, homeland security, and public safety. It says the order shall not adversely affect Social Security, Medicare, or veterans’ benefits, and that it is to be carried out consistent with law and available appropriations.
Within 180 days, the directors of the budget and personnel offices must send the President a joint report, routed by way of the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy. The report is to cover implementation and recommend whether any provision should be changed or ended.
The order’s background says that, in eight months, the administration reduced the size of the Federal workforce and that results surpassed a ratio of four departures for each new hire set in an order of Feb. 11, 2025. The order does not revoke that earlier order or the Jan. 20, 2025, hiring order.