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Which federal agencies are fully furloughed during the 2024 federal shutdown?
Executive Summary
The available reporting shows there is no authoritative, widely agreed list of federal agencies that are “fully furloughed” during the 2024 shutdown; instead, agencies experienced widely varying rates of furloughs, with some departments sending home large fractions of their workforce and others keeping most employees working because their functions are excepted or funded by alternate authorities [1] [2]. Independent trackers and news outlets describe high furlough rates at agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, Education, and Commerce, while major programs like Social Security, the U.S. Postal Service, Medicare and Medicaid continued operations [3] [4] [2].
1. Why reporters can’t point to a tidy list of “fully furloughed” agencies — and what that means for workers and services
The federal shutdown legal framework produces nuanced, agency-specific outcomes rather than a binary “open/closed” result, because agencies classify employees as excepted (essential) or non-excepted based on mission-critical work and funding sources. Guidance documents and administration memos set the process for determining furloughs, but the determinations are made at the agency level and often result in mixed work statuses across bureaus and offices; therefore, press accounts emphasize percentages and numbers of employees affected, not categorical lists of fully furloughed agencies [5] [1]. This structure means that while some agencies had large shares of staff furloughed, very few—if any—saw every single employee sent home, and the practical impact on public services depended on which functions within an agency were excepted or funded separately [2] [3]. Reporting focused on employee counts and service impacts because those metrics better capture how the shutdown affected day-to-day government operations and public access to services [4] [6].
2. Which agencies had the highest furlough rates — the patterns reporters reported most often
Contemporaneous coverage identified the Environmental Protection Agency, Education, and Commerce among the agencies with the highest shares of employees furloughed — with reported furlough rates in the high 80s and low 80s percent ranges for EPA, Education, and Commerce respectively — making them functionally paralysed in many non-excepted areas [3]. Government Executive and other summaries placed more than 600,000 employees at risk across multiple departments, and this reporting framed the story as one of concentrated staff shutdowns in regulatory, research, and grant-making functions while core national security and benefit-delivery missions continued [1] [2]. Those high-percentage furloughs translated into widespread service interruptions for some public-facing functions, even if a small number of essential personnel remained on duty.
3. Which agencies continued operating — the exceptions that kept many services running
Key service providers and programs continued operations because they are either financed by mandatory entitlements, trust funds, or independent revenue, or they are designated excepted for national security and public safety reasons. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the U.S. Postal Service, and passport services were reported to remain operational during the shutdown, as were large parts of Defense and Veterans Affairs, which furloughed very few employees due to mission-critical obligations [4] [2]. News outlets documented hundreds of thousands of federal workers remaining on the job without immediate pay, reflecting the administration’s designation of those roles as excepted even when annual appropriations lapsed [6] [1].
4. Conflicting claims and why some outlets implied entire departments were shut down
Some reporting and employee communications created impressions that entire departments were shuttered because agencies issued wide-ranging furlough notices or extended furlough timelines; this led to headlines that can be read as claiming whole-agency closures. That framing reflects how furloughs were communicated internally rather than a legal determination that an entire department was non-operational. Investigations and tracking pieces showed substantial variance across bureaus within departments — for example, Commerce headquarters units may have had massive furloughs while other Commerce bureaus with fee-funded activities continued [7] [2]. The divergence between internal memos and legal nuance accounts for apparent contradictions in coverage.
5. Bottom line for readers seeking a concise answer: what to rely on and what to watch next
There is no single authoritative roster of agencies “fully furloughed” for the 2024 shutdown; rely on agency-specific notices and contemporaneous trackers that report furlough percentages and which functions are excepted. Coverage from March–September 2024–2025 documented major furlough concentrations in EPA, Education, and Commerce and showed critical continuity at Social Security, USPS, Medicare/Medicaid, Defense, and Veterans Affairs [3] [4] [1]. For the clearest and most current picture, consult each agency’s human resources or press office notice and reputable tracking projects, because agency-level nuance, funding sources, and excepted-duty determinations determine who works and who is furloughed, not a simple department-level on/off switch [5] [2].