When did the 2018–2019 federal government shutdown officially end (date)?

1. Why January 25, 2019 is the definitive end date — the concrete action that reopened the government

Contemporaneous coverage and federal analyses agree that the shutdown concluded on the day Congress passed and the President signed a continuing resolution to restore funding to affected federal agencies. The signature by the President on the stopgap spending measure on January 25, 2019 legally ended the lapse in appropriations that had begun on December 22, 2018. The Congressional Budget Office and multiple major news outlets documented that agencies were reopened and federal employees began to return to work following that action, establishing January 25 as the operative end date for the shutdown ^{[3] [2] [4]}.

2. How the length was tallied and why 35 days appears in all accounts

The duration commonly cited—35 days—is derived from counting the period from the first day of the lapse in funding, December 22, 2018, through January 25, 2019, inclusive. Sources note that the shutdown began when a funding gap took effect after Congress failed to pass appropriations and continued until the administration accepted the temporary funding plan on January 25. The 35-day figure appears in official post-shutdown assessments and contemporaneous reporting because it matches that inclusive calendar count and became the standard metric for comparing this event to prior shutdowns ^{[1] [3]}.

3. What the January 25 deal actually did — temporary funding, no wall money

The legislation signed on January 25 reopened the affected federal agencies through a short-term continuing resolution, explicitly without the border wall funding the President had sought. The stopgap measure funded the government until mid-February 2019 and permitted negotiators to pursue a broader agreement on border security. Coverage at the time emphasized that the bill restored pay and operations immediately but left the central policy dispute unresolved, framing the January 25 action as a procedural end to the shutdown rather than a final policy settlement ^{[2] [5] [6]}.

4. Who was affected and why the end date mattered politically and practically

Approximately 800,000 federal employees were impacted—some furloughed, others required to work without pay—so the January 25 reopening had immediate practical consequences: back pay provisions, resumed operations at many agencies, and mitigation of cascading effects such as delayed services and economic disruptions. Politically, the end date signified a tactical retreat for the administration on its demand for wall funding and triggered both criticism and relief in public discourse, as reflected in contemporary reporting and retrospective analyses that link the January 25 deal to subsequent negotiations over border security ^{[6] [5] [7]}.

5. Consistency across sources and minor reporting variations — why some counts differ

Major government reports and news organizations consistently report January 25, 2019 as the shutdown’s end, but some accounts emphasize either a 34- or 35-day duration depending on inclusive or exclusive counting conventions. A small number of summaries focus on the date the President signed the measure versus the date certain agencies fully resumed operations, which can create minor discrepancies in framing. Despite these nuances, authoritative sources converge on the legal end of the lapse in appropriations as January 25, 2019, and treat the duration as 35 days in the widely accepted inclusive-count approach ^{[7] [3] [1]}.

6. Bottom line for fact-checkers and readers seeking the single answer

For any factual query about when the 2018–2019 partial federal government shutdown officially ended, the correct, well-documented answer is January 25, 2019, tied to the President’s signing of a stopgap funding bill that day. This date is corroborated by Congressional analyses and contemporaneous reporting that document both the legislative action and the resulting restoration of funding and operations, making January 25 the authoritative end point in the historical record ^{[3] [2] [4]}.