The requirements to be president of the United States are set by Article II of the Constitution, and there are three of them: you must be a natural born citizen, at least 35 years old, and a resident of the United States for at least 14 years.1Constitution Annotated. U.S. Constitution Article II Section 1 Clause 5 – Qualifications No federal statute adds to that list. A few later constitutional amendments create ways a person who meets all three can still be disqualified, but the baseline has not changed since 1787.
Natural Born Citizen
The Constitution limits the presidency to a “natural born Citizen.”1Constitution Annotated. U.S. Constitution Article II Section 1 Clause 5 – Qualifications The Supreme Court has never formally defined the phrase in the context of presidential eligibility, so some edges remain blurry, but the core meaning is widely agreed on: you had to be a U.S. citizen from the moment of birth, not a person who became a citizen later through naturalization.
Two categories of people clearly qualify. The first is anyone born on U.S. soil, regardless of the parents’ citizenship. The second is a person born abroad to at least one American parent who meets the residency conditions set by federal statute.2Constitution Annotated. ArtII.S1.C5.1 Qualifications for the Presidency The congressional analysis of the Qualifications Clause notes that both British common law and actions of the First Congress suggest the Framers understood “natural born citizen” to include children of American citizens born overseas.
Born Abroad to American Parents
When both parents are U.S. citizens, a child born outside the country qualifies as a citizen at birth as long as at least one parent lived in the United States before the birth. When only one parent is a citizen and the other is a foreign national, the citizen parent must have been physically present in the United States for at least five years total, with at least two of those after age 14.3Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 USC 1401 – Nationals and Citizens of United States at Birth Time abroad on military service or working for the U.S. government can count toward that physical-presence requirement.
Someone who immigrated and became a citizen through naturalization can vote, serve in Congress, and hold Cabinet positions, but the presidency and vice presidency stay off-limits.
At Least 35 Years Old
The Constitution requires every president to have “attained to the Age of thirty five Years.”1Constitution Annotated. U.S. Constitution Article II Section 1 Clause 5 – Qualifications The date that controls is the day you take office, not Election Day. A candidate who turns 35 between the November election and Inauguration Day on January 20 still qualifies.
The presidency carries the highest age bar of any elected federal office. House members must be 25 and senators must be 30.
Fourteen Years of U.S. Residency
A candidate must also have been “fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.”1Constitution Annotated. U.S. Constitution Article II Section 1 Clause 5 – Qualifications Those years do not have to be consecutive. Justice Joseph Story read the provision as requiring a “permanent domicil” in the United States rather than unbroken physical presence, and he pointed out that a stricter reading would have disqualified Americans posted abroad in embassies or as military officers.4Legal Information Institute. U.S. Constitution Annotated – Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 – Qualifications for the Presidency Someone whose career took them overseas on diplomatic or military assignment can still qualify, so long as their total residency in the country adds up to 14 years by inauguration.
The Vice President Has to Meet the Same Bar
The 12th Amendment states that “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.”5Constitution Annotated. U.S. Constitution – Twelfth Amendment All three Article II requirements apply to the vice president in full. A ticket cannot get around the qualifications by placing an otherwise ineligible person in the second slot.
What Does Not Disqualify You
There is no religious test. Article VI expressly forbids requiring any religious qualification for any federal office.6Constitution Annotated. Article VI – Supreme Law, Clause 3 A candidate can be of any faith or none.
A criminal record is also not a bar. Nothing in the Constitution disqualifies a candidate based on a felony conviction, a pending indictment, or even incarceration. The only eligibility rules are the three in Article II plus the disqualifications added by later amendments. A candidate could campaign from a prison cell and, if elected, take office.
Ways an Eligible Person Can Still Be Disqualified
Several amendments add disqualifications that can knock out a candidate who meets the three baseline requirements.
Term Limits
The 22nd Amendment prevents anyone from being elected president more than twice. It also contains a less familiar rule: if someone steps into the presidency partway through another president’s term and serves more than two years of it, that person can be elected only once afterward.7Constitution Annotated. U.S. Constitution – Twenty-Second Amendment A vice president who takes over with less than two years remaining can still win two full elections in their own right.
Insurrection
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment bars anyone from holding federal or state office who previously swore an oath to support the Constitution and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”8Constitution Annotated. Fourteenth Amendment Section 3 – Disqualification from Holding Office It was written after the Civil War to keep former Confederate officials out of government. The Supreme Court ruled in 2024 in Trump v. Anderson that only Congress, not individual states, can enforce the disqualification against federal candidates. Congress can lift the disqualification with a two-thirds vote in both chambers.9Constitution Annotated. Amdt14.S3.1 Overview of the Insurrection Clause (Disqualification Clause)
Impeachment
If the House impeaches and the Senate convicts, the Senate can vote separately to bar that person from ever holding federal office again. Article I, Section 3 says the judgment in impeachment cases can extend to “removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States.”10Constitution Annotated. Article I Section 3 Because removal and disqualification are separate votes, the Senate can remove someone without also barring them from future office.
If a President-Elect Turns Out Not to Qualify
The 20th Amendment covers what happens if a person wins the election but proves ineligible before Inauguration Day. If the president-elect “shall have failed to qualify,” the vice president-elect steps in as acting president until a qualified president is determined. If neither qualifies, Congress can decide by law who acts as president in the meantime.11Constitution Annotated. Twentieth Amendment – Presidential Term and Succession, Section 3 The mechanism has never been triggered, but it sits in the Constitution as a backstop.