Who Sets the President’s Salary and What Is It?

Congress sets the salary of the President of the United States, and it currently stands at $400,000 a year. The Constitution assigns that decision to the legislative branch alone, and the figure can only be changed by a new act of Congress signed into law.

Why Congress Holds This Power

Article II, Section 1, Clause 7 of the Constitution gives Congress exclusive authority to decide what the President earns.¹ Because the salary is fixed by statute, any change has to move through the full legislative process: passage by the House and Senate, then the President’s signature or a veto override. The person receiving the paycheck does not get to set it.

The same clause bars the President from accepting any additional payment, called an emolument, from the federal government or any state government while in office. The salary Congress sets is the only compensation the President is allowed to receive from any American government.

The Rule That Locks the Salary In Place

Congress’s power to set presidential pay comes with a timing restriction. The Domestic Emoluments Clause says the President’s compensation “shall neither be increased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected.”¹ If Congress passes a raise or a cut, it cannot take effect until the next presidential term begins.

The rule cuts both ways. Congress cannot reward a cooperative President with a raise mid-term, and it cannot punish a defiant one with a pay cut. That is the reason every salary change in American history has been timed to a new term.

What the President Earns Today

Under 3 U.S.C. § 102, the President is paid $400,000 a year in monthly installments.² That amount has been in effect since noon on January 20, 2001, when it doubled from $200,000. The base salary is taxable as ordinary income.

Congress provides three separate allowances alongside the salary so that the routine costs of the office do not come out of the President’s own pocket:

A $50,000 expense allowance for carrying out official duties. It is excluded from the President’s gross income and is not taxable, and any unused portion returns to the Treasury at year’s end.²
A $100,000 annual travel allowance under 3 U.S.C. § 103, spent at the President’s discretion and accounted for on the President’s certificate alone.³
An entertainment allowance appropriated under 3 U.S.C. § 104 for official functions.

These allowances are not salary. They fund things like hosting foreign leaders, traveling for official business, and attending state events.

How Often Congress Has Actually Raised the Pay

In more than two centuries, Congress has raised the President’s salary only five times, and each increase followed decades of inflation rather than any regular schedule:

1789: The first Congress set the salary at $25,000, where it stayed through 18 presidencies.
1873: Doubled to $50,000, starting with Ulysses S. Grant’s second term.
1909: Raised to $75,000 in time for William Howard Taft’s inauguration.
1949: Raised to $100,000 for Harry Truman’s second term, after four decades of inflation had cut the buying power of $75,000 by roughly 60 percent.²
1969: Doubled to $200,000, first received by Richard Nixon.²
2001: Doubled again to $400,000, first received by George W. Bush.²

The pattern is consistent. Congress waits until inflation has significantly eroded the salary’s real value, then passes a raise that takes effect at the start of the next term, as the Constitution requires.

1
Cornell Law School. Emoluments Clause and Presidential Compensation
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 3 USC 102 – Compensation of the President
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 3 USC 103 – Traveling Expenses