The bill repeals the statutory headquarters location requirement in title 4 and directs the head of each executive agency to develop and implement a plan to relocate its headquarters outside the Washington metropolitan area. Agencies must submit relocation plans to Congress by September 30, 2026, and complete implementation by September 30, 2030, with no more than 10% of agency employees remaining in the defined Washington metro area.
This is consequential for federal operations: it forces agencies, GSA, and OMB into a large-scale reorganization of where federal leadership and core staff are located. The mandate touches workforce retention, existing leases and facilities, budgeting and procurement, national-security facilities, and economic impacts for the communities that gain or lose federal presence.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill repeals 4 U.S.C. §72 and requires each executive agency to identify a new headquarters location outside the defined Washington metropolitan area, certify a plan with OMB and GSA, and implement that plan by September 30, 2030. Plans must maximize cost savings, address national security implications, and limit Washington-based employees to 10% of agency staff.
Who It Affects
All executive agencies as defined in 5 U.S.C. §105 (excluding the Executive Office of the President), their senior leadership, federal employees, GSA and OMB as certifying bodies, contractors tied to agency headquarters, and state and local governments that would host relocated headquarters.
Why It Matters
The bill changes where federal decision-making happens and creates a forced decentralization that will reshape hiring, lease management, IT and secure facilities, and interagency coordination. It also turns relocation into a budgetary and operational priority without providing explicit new funding or detailed implementation authorities.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The Drain the Swamp Act of 2025 removes the statutory requirement that places federal agency headquarters in the District of Columbia and replaces it with a mandatory relocation process. Each executive agency must produce a written relocation plan and pick a specific site outside the Washington metropolitan area.
Agencies must aim to reduce costs in the move, address any national security implications, and ensure that, once moved, no more than 10 percent of the agency’s employees remain in the specified D.C. metro counties.
Before an agency may submit its plan to Congress, the Director of OMB and the Administrator of GSA must certify that the plan meets the bill’s requirements. The certification role makes OMB and GSA gatekeepers for what counts as a compliant plan, but the bill does not give those offices independent waiver authority or create detailed review standards beyond the checklist in the statute.
Agencies have until September 30, 2026 to submit plans and until September 30, 2030 to implement them, compressing a complex set of moves into a roughly five-year window once the bill becomes active.Operationally, implementation will touch staffing, leases, secure facilities, IT, continuity-of-operations planning, and interactions with Congress and regulated entities. The statute exempts the Executive Office of the President but otherwise applies broadly to agencies defined under 5 U.S.C. §105, which includes a wide range of cabinet departments and independent establishments.
The bill defines the Washington metropolitan area narrowly by specific Maryland and Virginia counties plus D.C., meaning many nearby suburban or exurban locations would qualify as relocation sites.The bill is silent about funding, employee relocation incentives, collective bargaining implications, or how to handle long-term GSA leases and classified or secure facilities that are concentrated in the D.C. area. Agencies will need to reconcile statutory deadlines with real-world constraints such as security clearances, proximity to Congress for oversight and testimony, and lawful obligations under leases and interagency agreements.
The requirement to 'consider' national security implications creates a procedural obligation but does not provide an explicit exemption; agencies may therefore have to make factual records if they seek to retain certain capabilities or personnel in the D.C. area.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill repeals 4 U.S.C. §72, removing the existing statutory language that locates agency headquarters in the District of Columbia.
Agencies must submit a relocation plan to Congress by September 30, 2026, identifying a specific headquarters location outside the defined Washington metropolitan area.
Each plan must ensure that, after implementation, no more than 10% of the agency’s employees are based in the defined Washington metropolitan area.
The Director of OMB and the Administrator of GSA must certify an agency’s plan as compliant with the statute before submission to Congress.
Agencies must fully implement their certified relocation plans by September 30, 2030.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Short title
State the Act’s name as the 'Drain the Swamp Act of 2025.' This provides the public-facing label but has no operational effect on agency obligations.
Repeal of statutory headquarters location
Repeals section 72 of title 4, U.S. Code, the existing statutory language concerning headquarters location. Practically, this removes a statutory baseline that has tied federal headquarters to D.C., but repeal alone does not direct where agencies must go—the bill's subsequent subsections create that mandate and deadlines.
Plan requirement and required contents
Requires each executive agency head to develop a relocation plan naming a new headquarters site outside the Washington metro area. The plan must identify a location, attempt to maximize cost savings, limit Washington-based staff to 10% after implementation, and 'consider' national security implications. The statutory checklist is prescriptive about goals but leaves substantial judgment to agencies on how to demonstrate 'maximized' savings or how to document national-security considerations.
OMB and GSA certification
Makes OMB and GSA responsible for certifying that each relocation plan meets the statute’s checklist prior to submission. That certification function centralizes review and gives OMB and GSA a practical veto over plans that do not conform, but the bill does not set procedural timelines or standards for the certification review beyond the checklist items.
Implementation deadline and definitions
Sets an implementation deadline of September 30, 2030, and defines 'executive agency' (using 5 U.S.C. §105 but excluding the Executive Office of the President) and the specific counties that make up the Washington metropolitan area. The narrow geographic definition creates certainty about which locations are off-limits and which are available as relocation destinations.
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Explore Government in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- State and local governments outside the Washington metro area: jurisdictions that successfully attract a federal headquarters gain jobs, federal payroll, and local economic activity, and can offer site-specific incentives to capture long-term economic benefits.
- Local commercial landlords and construction firms in host communities: relocation creates demand for office space, build-outs, and support services in recipient cities and regions.
- Federal employees who want to relocate out of D.C.: staff preferring lower cost-of-living areas or ties to other regions may find new opportunity and upward mobility with transferred leadership and mission headquarters.
Who Bears the Cost
- Executive agencies: they must manage complex relocations, absorb upfront moving costs, renegotiate or break leases, replicate secure facilities, and risk operational disruption while meeting statutory deadlines.
- Federal employees who do not relocate: those unwilling or unable to move face job loss, forced remote arrangements, or separation, with attendant HR and collective-bargaining implications.
- GSA and OMB: these offices bear new administrative burdens to certify plans and support implementation, potentially without additional appropriations or staffing, and they will manage lease terminations and property dispositions.
- District of Columbia–area businesses and contractors: firms that serve agency headquarters—professional services, restaurants, hotels, and local vendors—face revenue declines if headquarters leave.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central tension is between decentralizing federal headquarters to reduce D.C. concentration and the operational, security, and workforce harms that forced relocation can cause: dispersal may spread economic benefits and reduce political centralization, but it risks degrading interagency coordination, raising costs to recreate secure facilities, and disrupting a workforce whose expertise and clearances are tied to the Washington region.
The bill creates a high-level, mandatory relocation framework but leaves major implementation questions unresolved. It requires agencies to 'consider' national security implications without creating an explicit exemption or detailed review standard, which may result in litigation or protracted interagency disputes where mission-critical facilities or classified operations are at stake.
The statutory deadlines are aggressive relative to the practical complexity of moving secure operations, transferring cleared personnel, and unwinding long-term GSA leases or third-party vendor contracts.
The legislation also lacks funding provisions and does not amend federal personnel statutes or collective-bargaining rules, so agencies will need to rely on existing appropriations or seek new funds to cover moving costs and retention incentives. That gap raises the risk that agencies will meet deadlines by cutting other programs, delaying modernization projects, or relying on costly short-term measures (e.g., multiple temporary offices).
Finally, the bill's requirement that OMB and GSA certify compliance centralizes authority but does not set objective metrics for 'maximizing cost savings,' inviting disputes about what counts as a satisfactory plan and creating political leverage for the certifying offices.
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