The recent U.S. federal government shutdown lasted 43 days in total, making it the longest shutdown in American history.

Basic timeline

  • The shutdown began on October 1, 2025 , the first day of the 2026 federal fiscal year, after Congress failed to pass funding bills or a stopgap measure.
  • It ended on November 12, 2025 , when President Donald Trump signed a funding bill that had passed both the Senate and the House.

Duration details

  • From October 1 to November 12 is 43 days , and this span is cited as the longest federal government shutdown on record.
  • Multiple analyses and advocacy groups describing the aftermath explicitly refer to it as a 43‑day shutdown in late 2025.

Context for “how long did the shutdown last”

If your question “how long did the shutdown last” refers to:

  • The latest major federal shutdown in the news : it is this 43‑day closure from Oct 1–Nov 12, 2025.
  • Current coverage in early 2026 now focuses on avoiding another shutdown when the stopgap funding runs out on January 30, 2026 , but that is about a future risk, not an ongoing closure.

Bottom line: when people online ask “how long did the shutdown last” in early 2026, they are almost always talking about the 2025 federal shutdown, which lasted 43 days.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.