18 USC 207: Lifetime, Two-Year, and Cooling-Off Bans

The post-employment restrictions in 18 U.S.C. 207 limit what former federal employees can do when they interact with the government on someone else’s behalf. Some bans last forever, others run one or two years, and the reach expands with the seniority of the position you left. Violations can bring civil penalties up to $50,000 per offense and prison time up to five years.

Lifetime Ban on Matters You Personally Handled

The strictest rule has no expiration. If you personally and substantially worked on a specific matter involving identified parties while in government, you can never go back to the government to influence that same matter on behalf of anyone else. “Personally and substantially” means more than initialing a document that passed through your inbox. You had to have played a meaningful role in developing or resolving the matter.

The ban only covers matters that involved specific parties at the time you worked on them, and the United States must be a party or have a direct and substantial interest. A former EPA official who helped negotiate a cleanup agreement with a specific company could never later represent that company, or anyone else, before the government on the same agreement.¹

Two-Year Ban on Matters Under Your Responsibility

Even if you never personally touched a matter, you face a two-year restriction if it fell under your official responsibility during your last year of government service. This catches the senior manager who oversaw a division handling a particular contract or enforcement action without getting personally involved in day-to-day decisions. For two years after leaving, that manager cannot contact the government to influence that matter on behalf of a private party.

The trigger is that you knew, or reasonably should have known, the matter was pending under your authority during your final year. The two-year clock starts when you leave government, not when the matter was pending.¹

One-Year Cooling-Off for Senior Employees

The lifetime and two-year bans apply to every former executive branch employee. Senior officials face an added restriction that goes beyond specific matters. For one year after leaving a senior position, you cannot contact any employee of your former agency to seek official action on behalf of anyone other than the United States. This covers any matter, not just ones you worked on. A senior official leaving the Department of Defense cannot call anyone at the Pentagon to lobby for a defense contractor for a full year, regardless of whether the issue relates to prior work.¹

The one-year clock starts from the date you leave the senior position, not necessarily from when you leave government service. If you step down from a senior role but stay on in a lower-level position, the cooling-off period begins immediately.²

The “senior” category is defined by pay level and appointment type, and includes Senior Executive Service members, certain White House and Vice-Presidential staff, active-duty flag and general officers, and some private-sector detailees. Your agency ethics official can tell you whether your position triggered senior status.¹

Two-Year Cooling-Off for Very Senior Employees

The highest-ranking officials face a two-year version of the cooling-off period with a wider net. Very senior employees include the Vice President, officials paid at Executive Schedule Level I (cabinet secretaries and equivalent), certain Executive Office of the President staff at Level II, and certain presidential and vice-presidential appointees.¹

The scope is broader than the senior employee ban. Very senior employees cannot contact anyone in their former agency, and they also cannot contact any person holding a senior appointment across the executive branch (positions listed in 5 U.S.C. 5312 through 5316). A former cabinet secretary is barred not just from lobbying the old department but from lobbying any other cabinet secretary or equivalent official for two years.¹

Foreign Government Work

Anyone subject to the senior, very senior, or congressional cooling-off periods faces an additional one-year ban on foreign work. For one year after leaving, you cannot represent a foreign government or foreign political party before any U.S. government agency, and you cannot aid or advise a foreign entity with the intent to influence U.S. government decisions.

This restriction reaches further than the domestic cooling-off periods because it covers aiding and advising, not just direct contact with government officials. The U.S. Trade Representative and Deputy Trade Representative face a permanent version of this ban and can never represent, aid, or advise foreign entities on matters intended to influence U.S. government decisions.¹

Trade and Treaty Negotiations

Former employees who personally and substantially participated in ongoing trade or treaty negotiations face a separate one-year ban. If you had access to confidential negotiation information properly designated as exempt from public disclosure, you cannot use that information to represent, aid, or advise anyone other than the United States on those same negotiations for one year after leaving. Like the foreign entity restriction, this ban covers behind-the-scenes advisory work, not just direct government contact.¹

What Counts as a Prohibited Communication

The most common misunderstanding is about scope. For the core restrictions in subsections (a), (c), and (d), the statute only prohibits making a “communication to or appearance before” a government employee with intent to influence, on behalf of someone else. A communication means transmitting information of any kind to a current government employee, by phone, email, letter, or in person.³

Behind-the-scenes work that never reaches a government employee is generally outside these provisions. A former official can draft strategy memos, advise a client on how to structure an argument, or prepare someone else to testify, as long as the former official does not personally communicate with or appear before government employees to influence the matter. You can be the architect of a lobbying campaign without violating the core bans. The moment you pick up the phone and call your old colleague at the agency, you have crossed the line.

Two exceptions matter here. The trade and treaty negotiation ban and the foreign entity ban both cover aiding and advising, so behind-the-scenes strategy work is itself prohibited in those contexts even without direct government contact.¹

Exceptions

The statute carves out several situations where former employees can interact with the government despite the restrictions:

Actions taken on behalf of the United States, if you return as a rehired employee or contractor.
Testimony under oath or statements required by law.
Communications on behalf of a state or local government (exempts the senior and very senior cooling-off periods only).
Communications on behalf of an accredited degree-granting university or a tax-exempt hospital or medical research organization (also exempts the cooling-off periods only).
Communications on behalf of an international organization in which the United States participates, if the Secretary of State certifies the activity is in the national interest.
Uncompensated statements based on your specialized expertise.
Communications made solely to provide scientific or technological information, under agency-approved procedures or a published certification from the agency head.

The university, hospital, and special-knowledge exceptions only exempt former employees from the cooling-off periods in subsections (c), (d), and (e). They do not override the lifetime ban on matters you personally handled or the two-year ban on matters under your official responsibility.¹

Penalties

Penalties come in both criminal and civil forms, and the criminal side has two tiers that catch people off guard. Any violation, even without proof of willful intent, can result in up to one year in prison, a fine, or both. If the government proves you acted willfully, the maximum jumps to five years. On the civil side, the Attorney General can bring a separate action seeking up to $50,000 per violation or the amount of compensation you received or were offered for the prohibited activity, whichever is greater.⁴

The one-year criminal penalty for non-willful violations is the detail most people miss. You do not need to have known you were breaking the law to face up to a year in prison. Ignorance of the restriction is not a defense against the base-level criminal penalty. The willfulness requirement applies only to the enhanced five-year tier.

Getting Ethics Guidance Before You Leave

Your agency’s designated ethics official is the first resource for advice on how the restrictions apply to your specific situation. The agency where you served bears the main responsibility for advising you about post-employment activities, and you can contact them even after leaving without that contact itself being treated as a prohibited communication.⁵

The Office of Government Ethics can also provide advice, informally and through formal written advisory opinions. The distinction matters: if OGE issues a formal advisory opinion and you follow it in good faith, the Department of Justice will not prosecute you for actions consistent with that opinion. Informal advice from your agency ethics official does not carry that same guarantee, though good-faith reliance on it is a factor DOJ considers when deciding whether to bring a case.⁵

Getting a formal opinion takes time. Start the conversation with your agency ethics official well before your last day, not after you have already accepted a private-sector offer and are wondering whether your first assignment crosses a line.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 207 – Restrictions on Former Officers, Employees, and Elected Officials of the Executive and Legislative Branches
2
eCFR. 5 CFR 2641.204 – One-Year Restriction on Any Former Senior Employee
3
eCFR. 5 CFR 2641.201 – Permanent Restriction on Any Former Employee’s Representations to United States Concerning Particular Matter in Which the Employee Participated Personally and Substantially
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 216 – Penalties and Injunctions
5
eCFR. 5 CFR Part 2641 – Post-Employment Conflict of Interest Restrictions