FEC sets Aug. 20 deadline for PAC and party committees’ monthly reports

The Federal Election Commission has set Aug. 20, 2026, as the deadline for monthly-filing political action committees and party committees to submit campaign-finance reports covering activity through July 31.

The reports will provide the next nationwide public disclosure of political money raised and spent by covered committees as the 2026 general-election campaign period approaches. The deadline applies across the United States and is a scheduled transparency event, not yet a release of the money those committees have raised or spent.

What committees must do

Under the FEC’s August reporting notice, monthly-filing PACs and party committees must close their books on July 31 and file their reports by Aug. 20. Electronic reports must be received and validated by 11:59 p.m. Eastern on the deadline.

That distinction matters for committees filing electronically: submitting a report before the cutoff is not the only requirement identified in the notice. The filing must also be received and validated by the FEC by 11:59 p.m. Eastern.

The schedule concerns federal campaign-finance reporting. It does not change voting rules, ballot procedures or voter-registration requirements. It also does not apply identically to every federal committee, because filing frequency varies by committee type.

What the disclosure will show

Once the reports are filed, the public will be able to examine the financial activity reported by the covered committees for the period ending July 31. That makes the deadline relevant to voters, journalists, watchdogs and others tracking political fundraising and spending during the 2026 federal election cycle.

The August deadline itself does not establish how much money will be disclosed. The approved notice sets the reporting period and filing date; it does not provide a donor total, spending total or committee-by-committee result in advance.

Those figures will depend on the reports that committees submit and the information contained in them. Until the filings are made, it would be premature to attribute a particular amount to any donor, PAC or political party.

More deadlines are scheduled

The FEC says the reporting schedule applies through the remainder of 2026. That includes monthly reports due in September and October, as well as special pre-general reporting tied to the fall election period.

For monthly-filing PACs and parties, the pre-general report is due Oct. 22. It will cover activity from Oct. 1 through Oct. 14, giving the public a required disclosure of financial activity during an important stretch of the general-election campaign.

The Aug. 20 report therefore marks an earlier step in a continuing sequence of disclosures. The later September and October monthly reports, along with the Oct. 22 pre-general filing, will provide additional scheduled opportunities to review activity as the election period advances.

What happens next

Covered monthly-filing PACs and party committees must prepare and submit their July reports by the Aug. 20 deadline. The FEC’s notice warns that the schedule does not replace statutory requirements, agency regulations or applicable court decisions.

For the public, the immediate next step is the filing deadline itself. The disclosure event will occur when the committees submit their reports and the FEC receives and validates the electronic filings. The notice establishes when that process is due, but it does not constitute the completed disclosure.