The Senate on Friday passed its first tranche of government funding bills for fiscal year 2026 ahead of its upcoming August recess, but Congress is bracing for a potentially messy fight to prevent a shutdown when they return in September.

The chamber approved three bills that provide more than $180 billion in discretionary funding for the departments of Veterans Affairs (VA) and Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), military construction, legislative branch operations and rural development.

The bills passed in two parts: on an 87-9 vote for military construction, VA, agriculture and FDA funding; and an 81-15 vote for legislative branch funding.

The votes cap off days of uncertainty over whether the Senate would be joining the House on a monthlong recess with any of its 12 annual funding bills passed out of the chamber.

Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.), who heads the subcommittee that crafted the full-year VA funding bill, said Friday that he sees the first batch of bills as more of a “test run.”

“It’s just been so long since we've done our appropriations bills. A lot of people just [forgot] the procedures,” he told The Hill, noting that in the previous congressional session senators “really didn’t do bills.”

Appropriators say the vote marks the first time since 2018 that the Senate has passed funding legislation before the August recess.

“It’s really a matter of just kind of legislating again, and the more we do it, the easier, the easier it’ll be as we go back,” Boozman said.

In the past week, senators had gone through several iterations of their first funding package of the year, as leaders on both sides worked through frustrations in their ranks over proposed spending levels and actions by the Trump administration that incensed Democrats.

© The Hill