Convicting a federal official in a Senate impeachment trial takes a two-thirds vote of the senators present. With all 100 senators voting, that means 67 guilty votes. The moment the Senate hits that threshold on any single article of impeachment, the official is removed from office automatically, and no court or executive action can reverse the result. So the short answer to how many senators it takes to impeach and remove someone is 67, assuming a full chamber.
The 67-Vote Threshold
Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution states that “no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.”1Constitution Annotated. Article I Section 3 Clause 6 – Impeachment Trials Two-thirds of 100 is 67. That is the number reporters use on the night of a vote, and it is the number that determines whether an official keeps their job.
Each article of impeachment gets its own separate roll-call vote. A senator can vote guilty on one article and not guilty on another, and conviction on even a single article is enough to trigger removal. If every article falls short of 67, the official is acquitted and remains in office as though nothing happened. The framers set the bar this high on purpose, because a conviction overrides an election or ends a lifetime judicial appointment.
How the Quorum Changes the Math
The two-thirds requirement counts senators present, not the full membership of 100. Under Article I, Section 5, a majority of the Senate must be in attendance to conduct business, which currently means 51 members.2Constitution Annotated. Article I Section 5 – Proceedings With only 51 senators on the floor, conviction would require 34 guilty votes. At 60 present, it drops to 40. Absent senators are not counted either way.
In practice, attendance at impeachment votes is close to complete because of the political weight involved, so 67 is the working number. But nothing in the Constitution forces a full house, and if attendance ever slipped below 51, the trial would pause until enough senators returned.
Impeachment by the House Comes First
Before the Senate votes on removal, the House of Representatives has to impeach the official, which is the formal accusation itself. The House holds the sole power of impeachment under Article I, Section 2, and it takes only a simple majority to approve articles of impeachment.3Constitution Annotated. ArtII.S4.1 Overview of Impeachment Clause With 435 voting members, 218 votes are enough to send charges to the Senate.
The two numbers do different jobs. Impeachment is the charge; conviction is the verdict. The House acts as a grand jury, deciding whether the accusations have enough merit to proceed. The Senate then acts as the trial court, deciding guilt. Getting charged in the House takes 218. Getting removed by the Senate takes 67. Both steps are required to actually pull someone out of office.
The Vote to Bar Someone From Future Office
Removal happens automatically at 67 guilty votes, but disqualifying a convicted official from ever holding federal office again is a separate vote. Article I, Section 3, Clause 7 lets the Senate bar a convicted official from “any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States.”4Legal Information Institute. U.S. Constitution Annotated Article I Section 3 Clause 7 Overview of Impeachment Judgments The Senate has established that disqualification takes only a simple majority, not two-thirds.5Congress.gov. The Impeachment Process in the Senate
Only three officials in American history have been both convicted and disqualified: Judge West H. Humphreys in 1862, Judge Robert W. Archbald in 1913, and Judge G. Thomas Porteous in 2010. The other five convicted officials were removed but left free to seek federal office again.
For a president specifically, conviction also strips retirement benefits under the Former Presidents Act, including the annual pension, staff allowances, and office space that former presidents normally receive. A president who resigns before the process concludes keeps those benefits.
Why 67 Votes Is So Hard to Get
The House has impeached 22 federal officials since 1789. The Senate has convicted only eight of them, all federal judges.6U.S. House of Representatives. List of Individuals Impeached by the House of Representatives No president has ever been convicted. Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton, and Donald Trump (twice) were each impeached by the House and acquitted by the Senate. Richard Nixon came closest, resigning before the full House voted on articles of impeachment.
Reaching 67 requires substantial cross-party support, which is why presidential cases have never gotten there. Judicial impeachments succeed more often, in part because they carry less partisan charge and in part because the underlying misconduct is often already documented through criminal convictions for bribery or perjury.
One boundary worth naming: members of Congress cannot be impeached. Article II, Section 4 limits impeachment to “the President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States,”7Legal Information Institute. U.S. Constitution Article II – Section 4 and each chamber disciplines its own members separately, with expulsion requiring a two-thirds vote under Article I, Section 5.2Constitution Annotated. Article I Section 5 – Proceedings So a search for how many senators it takes to remove a senator is a different question with a different answer: 67 senators can expel a colleague, but that is expulsion, not impeachment.