Constitutional Eligibility Requirements for House Members

To serve in the U.S. House of Representatives, the Constitution sets three requirements: you must be at least 25 years old, have been a U.S. citizen for at least seven years, and be an inhabitant of the state you’re elected to represent. Those are the only qualifications a candidate can be held to, though a handful of separate constitutional provisions can disqualify someone who otherwise meets all three.

Minimum Age of 25

The Qualifications Clause in Article I, Section 2, Clause 2 fixes the minimum age at 25.¹ That is lower than the Senate’s 30 and the presidency’s 35, reflecting the Framers’ intent to keep the House close to ordinary citizens.

You do not have to be 25 on Election Day. Congressional practice allows a member-elect to take office as long as they turn 25 before being sworn in, and the House has seated members who were younger than the threshold when voters chose them but had reached it by the start of the new term.¹

Seven Years of U.S. Citizenship

A candidate must have been a U.S. citizen for at least seven years. Naturalized citizens qualify; unlike the presidency, the House has no natural-born citizen requirement. As with the age rule, the seven-year clock must be satisfied by the time the member takes the oath of office, not on Election Day.¹

Inhabitant of the State

The Constitution requires a Representative to be an “inhabitant” of the state from which they are elected at the time of the election.² The Framers picked that word over “resident” on purpose. James Madison noted that “inhabitant” would not exclude someone temporarily away from the state on public or private business.¹

One point surprises many people: the Constitution requires you to live somewhere in the state, not in the specific congressional district you’d represent. In theory, a person in one corner of a state can run for a district on the opposite end. In practice, voters strongly prefer someone who lives among them, so it rarely happens.

States Cannot Add Their Own Requirements

Those three qualifications are the ceiling as well as the floor. States cannot impose additional requirements such as property ownership, professional credentials, or term limits on candidates for the House. The Supreme Court settled this in U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton (1995), striking down an Arkansas constitutional amendment that tried to bar its federal representatives from the ballot after a set number of terms.³ Because the Constitution fixes the qualifications for federal legislators, no state can unilaterally expand the list.

The practical consequence reaches further than term limits. A convicted felon who meets the age, citizenship, and inhabitancy requirements is constitutionally eligible to serve. There is no criminal-history disqualification in the requirements for Congress, and state laws attempting to bar felons from running for federal office have been struck down when challenged.⁴

Constitutional Disqualifications That Can Still Apply

Meeting the three affirmative requirements is not always enough. Several other constitutional provisions can bar an otherwise eligible person from taking a House seat.

The Incompatibility Clause

Article I, Section 6 prohibits anyone holding “any Office under the United States” from simultaneously serving in either chamber of Congress.⁵ A sitting Representative cannot also be a cabinet secretary, a federal judge, or a military officer. Accepting such a position means giving up the House seat.

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment bars anyone who previously swore an oath to support the Constitution and then engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States from holding federal or state office. Drafted after the Civil War to keep former Confederate officials out of government, it remains part of the Constitution and has drawn renewed legal attention in recent years. Congress can lift the disability for a specific individual, but only by a two-thirds vote of each chamber.⁶

Disqualification After Impeachment

Under Article I, Section 3, the Senate can vote to disqualify a person from holding future federal office after an impeachment conviction. That vote is separate from the conviction itself and requires only a simple majority. If the Senate convicts but skips this step, the person stays eligible for future office, including a House seat.⁷

No Religious Test

Article VI, Clause 3 explicitly prohibits any religious test as a qualification for federal office, so no candidate for the House can be required to profess a particular faith or any religious belief at all.⁸

Who Decides Whether You Qualify

Article I, Section 5 makes each chamber “the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members.”⁹ The House can investigate disputed elections, compel testimony, and resolve challenges to a member-elect’s eligibility.

That power has a firm limit. In Powell v. McCormack (1969), the Supreme Court held that the House could not refuse to seat Adam Clayton Powell Jr., a duly elected Representative who met all three constitutional qualifications.¹⁰ The House can judge whether a member meets the qualifications the Constitution spells out; it cannot invent new grounds for exclusion by majority vote.

Exclusion and expulsion are different tools. Exclusion blocks a member-elect from being seated in the first place and, under Powell, requires a failure of one of the three constitutional qualifications. Expulsion removes someone already seated and, under Article I, Section 5, needs the concurrence of two-thirds of the chamber. The higher threshold buys broader grounds.