Emoluments Clauses of the Constitution

What Is the Emoluments Clause

The Emoluments Clauses are two anti-corruption rules in the Constitution that limit what payments and gifts federal officials, and the president in particular, may accept. An “emolument” is a payment, profit, or benefit. The Foreign Emoluments Clause bars any federal officeholder from accepting gifts or payments from a foreign government without the consent of Congress. The Domestic Emoluments Clause fixes the president’s salary and bars any extra payment from the federal government or the states.

The two clauses share one goal: keeping money from buying American officials. The Foreign clause guards against foreign cash reaching anyone in federal office. The Domestic clause keeps Congress or a state from rewarding or punishing a president with money.

Where the Emoluments Fights Stand in 2026

Five open questions test the clauses right now, and none has reached a court ruling on what “emolument” means. Each row gives the question’s status as of today, and which clause it tests.

Every row is a dispute, not a finding. The clauses give Congress the consent power and give no one an obvious way to sue, which is why most of these fights sit in resolutions and news reports rather than courtrooms.

The Two Clauses, Side by Side

The clauses sit in different parts of the Constitution and do different jobs, so the text of each is the place to start. The Foreign Emoluments Clause (Art. I, Sec. 9, Cl. 8) reads: “No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.” The Domestic Emoluments Clause (Art. II, Sec. 1, Cl. 7) reads: “The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation… and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them.”

The plain difference is who each one covers and whether there is an escape valve.

Congress uses the consent valve in bulk. The Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act of 1966 (5 U.S.C. 7342) pre-approves foreign gifts of minimal value, set at $525 since January 2026 (GSA), so a diplomat can keep a small token without a vote. Other gifts are generally treated as the property of the U.S. government, not the official (Brennan Center).

What Counts as an Emolument

Almost every modern dispute comes down to how broadly you read one word. The broad reading counts any profit from a foreign government, including a hotel bill. The narrow reading counts only pay for an office or for services, and leaves ordinary business alone.

	The broad reading	The narrow reading
What counts	Any profit, gain, or benefit, including business income	Only pay tied to an office or services rendered
A foreign embassy books a hotel room	Counts, if the official profits	Does not count; it is an arm’s-length sale
Who holds it	Two federal trial courts (2018, 2019), CREW, scholar John Mikhail	Trump’s Justice Department in court, scholars Robert Natelson and Amandeep Grewal

Sources: Congressional Research Service, R45992; Brennan Center; District of Columbia v. Trump (D. Md. 2018); Blumenthal v. Trump (D.D.C. 2019).

The Justice Department’s record points both ways. Its Office of Legal Counsel has at times judged a payment by whether it could influence the official, and one of its opinions barred a law-firm partner from sharing in profits from foreign-government clients he never worked for. In the Trump lawsuits, the department argued for a narrower reading tied to pay for an office or services, which would leave a president’s business deals outside the clauses. One commentator CRS cites calls the law-firm opinion “difficult to reconcile” with that narrower reading (Congressional Research Service).

Two trial judges then sided with the broad reading. In July 2018, a federal judge in Maryland defined “emolument” as “any profit, gain, or advantage” of more than minimal value. A federal judge in Washington did the same in April 2019 (Blumenthal v. Trump). Both rulings were later erased on procedural grounds, so neither binds any court today.

How Presidents Used to Comply

The clauses had a working record long before anyone sued over them. The Foreign Emoluments Clause entered the Constitution in 1787, Andrew Jackson handed a gift to Congress in 1830, Congress created a standing gift process in 1966, the Justice Department cleared Barack Obama’s Nobel Prize in 2009, lawsuits followed in 2017, the Supreme Court ended them in 2021, Qatar’s jet arrived in 2025, and a judge rebuked the IRS suit in 2026.

1. 1787 Foreign clause added at the convention Charles Pinckney moves the Foreign Emoluments Clause and the convention adds it.
2. 1830 Jackson gives a gift to Congress Andrew Jackson says the Constitution bars him from keeping a gold medal from Simón Bolívar and places it at Congress’s disposal.
3. 1966 Minor-gift process created The Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act lets officials keep small foreign gifts without a vote.
4. 2009 Nobel Prize cleared The Justice Department advises that Obama’s Nobel is allowed because the Nobel Committee is not a foreign state.
5. 2017 Three lawsuits filed Watchdogs, two governments, and members of Congress accuse President Trump of violating the clauses through his businesses.
6. 2021 Last suits dismissed as moot The Supreme Court ends the two remaining cases after Trump leaves office, with no ruling on the merits.
7. 2025 Qatar’s jet accepted The administration accepts a Boeing 747 from Qatar without asking Congress.
8. 2026 Judge rebukes the IRS suit A federal judge rules Trump’s $10 billion suit against agencies he controls was filed for an “improper purpose.”

Sources: Constitution Annotated; Congressional Research Service, R45992; TIME; Associated Press.

From the 1787 convention to the 2026 disputes: 1787: Foreign clause added at the convention (Charles Pinckney moves the Foreign Emoluments Clause and the convention adds it.). 1830: Jackson gives a gift to Congress (Andrew Jackson says the Constitution bars him from keeping a gold medal from Simón Bolívar and places it at Congress’s disposal.). 1966: Minor-gift process created (The Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act lets officials keep small foreign gifts without a vote.). 2009: Nobel Prize cleared (The Justice Department advises that Obama’s Nobel is allowed because the Nobel Committee is not a foreign state.). 2017: Three lawsuits filed (Watchdogs, two governments, and members of Congress accuse President Trump of violating the clauses through his businesses.). 2021: Last suits dismissed as moot (The Supreme Court ends the two remaining cases after Trump leaves office, with no ruling on the merits.). 2025: Qatar’s jet accepted (The administration accepts a Boeing 747 from Qatar without asking Congress.). 2026: Judge rebukes the IRS suit (A federal judge rules Trump’s $10 billion suit against agencies he controls was filed for an “improper purpose.”).

1787: At the Constitutional Convention, Charles Pinckney moved the Foreign Emoluments Clause, and the delegates added it to guard the new government against foreign influence.

1830: Andrew Jackson told Congress in a January 19 letter that the Constitution barred him from accepting a gold medal from Simón Bolívar, and he placed the medal “at the disposal of Congress.” Ten years later, Congress passed a joint resolution letting Martin Van Buren sell gifts from the Imam of Muscat and deposit the money in the Treasury (CRS).

1966: Congress passed the Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act, which pre-consents to minor foreign gifts so officials are not forced to refuse small diplomatic tokens.

2009: The Justice Department advised that Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize was not a banned foreign emolument, reasoning that the Norwegian Nobel Committee is not a foreign state. The White House said he would give the $1.4 million in prize money to charity (ABC News).

2017: Three lawsuits accused President Trump of violating the clauses through payments to his businesses, the first serious emoluments litigation in the country’s history.

2021: After Trump left office, the Supreme Court vacated the appeals court rulings and ordered the two remaining suits dismissed as moot, so no ruling on the merits survives.

2025: The administration accepted a Boeing 747 from Qatar in May 2025, without seeking Congress’s consent, for use as Air Force One.

2026: On July 13, 2026, a federal judge in Florida ruled that Trump’s $10 billion suit against the IRS and Treasury, agencies he directs, had been filed for an “improper purpose.”

The founders’ worry was concrete. Edmund Randolph told Virginia’s ratifying convention that a box the king of France presented to an American ambassador was “an accident which actually happened” that helped produce the clause. CRS notes it is unclear whether he meant the snuffbox Louis XVI gave Benjamin Franklin or a similar gift to another envoy, Arthur Lee (CRS).

An accident which actually happened.

Edmund Randolph, Virginia ratifying convention, on the foreign gift that helped produce the clause, 1788

How the First-Term Emoluments Lawsuits Ended

Three lawsuits ran from 2017 to 2021, and none produced a final answer on what the clauses mean. CREW v. Trump, filed in New York in 2017, challenged foreign patronage of Trump businesses. District of Columbia and Maryland v. Trump focused on the Trump International Hotel in Washington. Blumenthal v. Trump was brought by 215 members of Congress over the consent requirement.

They ended in two different ways. The D.C. Circuit threw out the members’ case on February 7, 2020, holding that individual lawmakers lacked standing to sue, because only an institution can assert an injury to the institution (Blumenthal v. Trump). The other two outlasted his term.

That order erased the Maryland court’s broad definition; the Washington ruling had already fallen with the members’ case. Standing, the rule that a plaintiff must show a personal injury, is still the main barrier to any new suit.

The Foreign Payments on Record

China paid the most, and nearly all of it came through one bank lease. The accounting firm’s records held nothing on it. Instead, a debt prospectus filed with the SEC shows the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, a state-owned bank, leasing space in Trump Tower through October 31, 2019, and the staff report estimates the rent from that lease.

1. Owner People’s Republic of China Controls the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, a state-owned bank ↓ owns
2. Tenant ICBC, Trump Tower office lease Annual rent of $1,948,180, per an SEC filing, through October 31, 2019 ↓ pays rent to
3. Landlord Trump Tower Commercial LLC A company Trump kept owning while president ↓ adds up to
4. Estimated total At least $5,357,495, February 2017 to October 2019 No request for Congress’s consent was ever made

Source: House Oversight Committee Democratic staff, White House for Sale (January 4, 2024), from a debt prospectus filed with the SEC. The total is the staff's estimate from the lease terms.

The same records put China far ahead of every other government. China accounts for about 71% of the more than $7.8 million the staff report itemizes, and Saudi Arabia is a distant second at about $615,000.

Foreign-government payments to Trump businesses, top six countries, 2017-2019 records (thousands of dollars)

Category	Value
China	$5573K
Saudi Arabia	$615K
Qatar	$466K
Kuwait	$303K
India	$283K
Malaysia	$249K

Source: House Oversight Committee Democratic staff, White House for Sale (2024), per-country totals from Mazars records and public filings. The records cover four of Trump's 500-plus businesses and mostly 2017-2018, so the real totals are likely higher.

The report’s authors stress that this is a floor. Committee Chairman James Comer released the accounting firm from its subpoena in January 2023, so the records stop partway through the term. The committee’s earlier fight to enforce that subpoena produced Trump v. Mazars (2020), the Supreme Court’s test for congressional subpoenas of a president’s records.

The Trump Organization had promised to donate “profits” from foreign-government patronage to the Treasury. The staff report points out that the clause bars accepting the payment itself, not only the profit on it, so a profits-only policy could not meet the constitutional test.

The Questions in the Second Term

The second term moved the disputes from hotel bills to a jet, a crypto company, and a lawsuit against the president’s own agencies. Each is contested, and a court has ruled on the emoluments question in none of them.

The Qatar jet. In May 2025, the administration accepted a Boeing 747-8 from Qatar, valued at about $400 million, for use as Air Force One and later transfer to Trump’s presidential library foundation. ABC News reported, citing unnamed sources, that Attorney General Pam Bondi gave the White House a legal memo finding the gift and later transfer “legally permissible” (ABC News). Senator Richard Blumenthal’s Senate Resolution 244 and Representative Jamie Raskin’s House Resolution 410 argued that taking it without Congress’s consent violates the Foreign Emoluments Clause. Neither got a vote. The jet has flown as Air Force One since July 2026. The White House told TIME in July that it “will receive additional upgrades and enhancements in the fall which will take approximately one month to complete,” with the president using the old plane in the meantime (TIME).

World Liberty Financial. The Wall Street Journal reported on January 31, 2026, that a company backed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE’s national security adviser, paid $500 million for 49% of the Trump family’s crypto company (CNBC). The Journal reported that the deal came months before the UAE won access to advanced American AI chips. On April 16, 2026, House Judiciary Democrats filed a resolution calling on Trump to divest from it under the Foreign Emoluments Clause (House Judiciary Democrats).

The $TRUMP memecoin. The token launched days before the January 2025 inauguration, and 220 of its largest investors were invited to dine with the president on May 22, 2025 (NPR). The Brennan Center reports that buyers connected to foreign governments, including the UAE and China, sent money into the family’s crypto ventures (Brennan Center). NPR found that all but a few of the dinner guests were identified only by crypto wallet addresses, so how much of the money came from foreign states is not public.

The $10 billion IRS suit. This is the first major test of the Domestic clause. In January 2026, Trump and his two eldest sons sued the IRS and Treasury for $10 billion over a contractor’s leak of his tax returns. The defendants were agencies the president directs. In May the two sides announced a settlement. It created a $1.776 billion fund for people who say the justice system mistreated them, which the administration later dropped, and protection from tax audits for Trump and his family, which the administration has said it will keep.

On July 13, 2026, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams ruled that the suit had been filed “for an improper purpose,” because the president controlled both sides. “Whether Executive Branch actors can privately agree to give themselves and their former clients blanket immunities and billions of dollars in tax monies for legally undefined grievances was never an issue advanced to this Court,” she wrote (Associated Press). She did not rule on the Domestic Emoluments Clause. House Judiciary Democrats argue that any payment from such a settlement would violate it. The Justice Department appealed on September 11, 2026 (Democracy Docket).

For the ethics fights running alongside these, see our coverage.

Who Can Enforce the Emoluments Clauses

The clauses exist so that officials answer to the public, not to whoever can pay them. When the rule works, an official cannot take money from a foreign power and keep serving as if nothing happened. For two centuries it worked mostly on the honor system: earlier presidents generally complied on their own and, when in doubt, sought legal guidance, as Obama did over the Nobel Prize (Brennan Center).

The courts have not supplied an enforcer, so it falls to Congress. Congress can consent or refuse, one gift at a time. It can also pass a law that defines “emolument,” names who may sue, and sets penalties. The last such bill, the No Foreign Emoluments Without Congressional Consent Act (H.R. 8485), would have added criminal and civil penalties and forfeiture of improper payments. It never got a vote and died with the 118th Congress (House Oversight Democrats).

The idea is back in this Congress. Title XIII of the Protecting Our Democracy Act, from Sen. Adam Schiff (S. 2838, September 2025) and Rep. Jamie Raskin (H.R. 8831, May 2026), would ban foreign and domestic emoluments in statute, let Congress sue, and give the Office of Government Ethics power to enforce the ban. Two Senate resolutions, S. Res. 219 in 2025 and S. Res. 807 in July 2026, would direct the Senate’s lawyer to sue on the chamber’s behalf. None of these has had a vote.

The Honest Disagreement

The meaning of “emolument” is a genuine dispute, and serious people hold each side. No surviving court ruling resolves it, so this page does not declare a winner.

The broad-reading case comes from CREW and the scholar John Mikhail. They argue the founders used “emolument” to mean any profit or benefit, so foreign-government money flowing to a president’s businesses is exactly what the clause forbids. Mikhail’s survey of founding-era dictionaries found most defined the word that broadly, and two federal trial judges agreed before their rulings were vacated.

The narrow-reading case comes from the Justice Department’s position in the Trump suits and from scholars such as Robert Natelson and Amandeep Grewal, whom CRS cites. They argue the clause reaches pay for an office or services, not ordinary arm’s-length business. Seth Barrett Tillman, writing with Josh Blackman, goes further, contending the president does not hold an “Office… under the United States” in the clause’s technical sense, so the Foreign clause may not reach him at all.

A few distinctions hold up no matter which reading wins. A gift differs from a market-rate purchase, and foreign-government money differs from a private foreign customer’s. The consent process exists so close calls can go to Congress, though whether courts can also enforce the clause remains open.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the Emoluments Clause apply to the president?

The Domestic clause names the president directly. The Justice Department’s legal office has presumed the Foreign clause covers the president too, and a federal trial court agreed. Some scholars, including Seth Barrett Tillman, argue it does not.

Can a president receive money from foreign countries?

Only with Congress’s consent, or as a minor gift under the Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act of 1966. Whether business income from a foreign government counts is the unresolved question.

Has anyone ever been punished for violating the Emoluments Clauses?

No court has ever awarded a remedy. There were no significant lawsuits over the clauses until Trump’s first term, and those ended without a ruling on the merits. Enforcement has run on voluntary compliance and on Congress’s consent power.

Did the courts decide whether Trump violated the clauses?

No. One suit was dismissed for lack of standing in 2020, and the other two were dismissed as moot in January 2021, after he left office. No finding on the merits survives.

What You Can Do

1. Ask your members of Congress to use the consent power. The Foreign clause makes Congress the gatekeeper. Ask whether they would vote to consent to the Qatar jet and the World Liberty stake, and demand disclosure of foreign-government payments first.

2. Ask your senators to support S. Res. 219. It would direct the Senate’s own lawyer to sue to enforce the Foreign clause. The D.C. Circuit ended the members’ 2017 suit because individual lawmakers cannot sue for an injury to the institution, and this would have the Senate itself sue.

3. Read the source records yourself. The House Oversight staff report lists every payment it found by country and property, and the Brennan Center tracks the second-term questions.

4. Learn the related rules. Read the Hatch Act explainer on government ethics and the lobbying explainer on how money buys influence.

5. Write your representative using the letter below, asking for an enforcement law that defines “emolument,” names who can sue, and sets penalties.