What is a contribution limit in federal campaign finance?

The contribution limit is the foundational constraint of federal campaign finance law. Congress enacted the per-election limit structure as part of the Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments of 1974 (Pub. L. 93-443), responding to the Watergate-era fundraising abuses in which unlimited corporate and individual gifts to presidential campaigns generated documented quid pro quo relationships between donors and officeholders. FECA's 1974 contribution limits were: $1,000 per candidate per election for individuals (52 U.S.C. Section 30116(a)(1)); $5,000 per candidate per election for multi-candidate political committees (52 U.S.C. Section 30116(a)(2)); and various limits for party committees (52 U.S.C. Section 30116(a)(4) and (d)). The Supreme Court analyzed the 1974 limits in Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976), the foundational First Amendment case in campaign finance law. The Buckley Court sustained contribution limits under the First Amendment, holding that they burden political expression and association only marginally and that the government's interest in preventing quid pro quo corruption and its appearance is sufficiently weighty to justify that marginal burden. The Court simultaneously struck FECA's expenditure limits -- caps on independent spending -- holding that spending limits impose a direct and substantial restraint on the quantity of political speech that cannot survive First Amendment scrutiny. This distinction means that what FECA caps is the contribution: the gift made to a candidate's committee. What FECA may not cap is independent spending: amounts a person or organization spends to advocate for or against a candidate without coordinating with the campaign.

Each primary election and the general election are separate elections for contribution-limit purposes under 52 U.S.C. Section 30116. A presidential primary election, a runoff primary election, and the general election each constitute a distinct 'election' under FECA. This means a contributor who gives the full individual per-election amount to a 2028 presidential candidate's committee in the primary may give that same amount again for the general election -- the primary and general caps are applied independently, not cumulatively. A 'special election' called to fill a vacancy in a federal office is also a separate election. The per-election structure is significant for presidential primaries in particular: because the 2028 presidential primary will be contested across many states and over many months, a campaign can solicit contributions for the primary at the start of the cycle and then re-solicit from the same donors for the general election after clinching the nomination, doubling the maximum hard money raise from any given contributor who gives the individual maximum in both phases.

The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA, Pub. L. 107-155, signed March 27, 2002) made two significant changes to the individual contribution limit at 52 U.S.C. Section 30116(a)(1). First, BCRA raised the individual per-election limit from $1,000 to $2,000, reversing 28 years of nominal-dollar erosion during which the fixed limit lost approximately two-thirds of its real value to inflation since 1974. Second, BCRA added an inflation-indexing mechanism: beginning with the 2004 election cycle, the FEC adjusts the individual contribution limit each two-year election cycle based on the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers. The practical result is that the individual limit increases in modest increments from cycle to cycle, so a contributor who gave the maximum amount in 2004 would find a higher nominal limit applying in each subsequent cycle. The multi-candidate committee (PAC) limit of $5,000 per candidate per election, by contrast, was set by the 1974 FECA amendments and was not modified by BCRA; it remains unindexed and has not changed since 1974. Because current contribution limits for any specific election cycle depend on the FEC's inflation-adjustment calculations, donors to 2028 presidential campaigns should verify the current per-election limit at fec.gov rather than relying on amounts published in prior-cycle reporting. The FEC publishes the current cycle contribution limits on its website at the start of each two-year election cycle.

McCutcheon v. FEC, 572 U.S. 185 (2014), is the most significant post-Buckley Supreme Court decision affecting the contribution limit framework, though it left individual per-election limits fully intact. Before McCutcheon, FECA imposed not only per-election limits to each candidate (52 U.S.C. Section 30116(a)(1)) but also an aggregate biennial limit under 52 U.S.C. Section 30116(a)(3) capping how much any individual could give in total to all federal candidates, party committees, and PACs during a two-year election cycle. Chief Justice Roberts, writing for a four-Justice plurality (with Justice Thomas concurring in the judgment), held that the aggregate limits violated the First Amendment because they restricted the total number of candidates and committees a donor could support at the maximum individual level without serving the government's interest in preventing quid pro quo corruption beyond what the per-candidate limits themselves already accomplish. The Court reasoned that once a per-election cap is in place for each recipient, additional aggregate caps do not further the anti-corruption interest -- a donor who gives the per-election limit to each of twenty candidates is not more 'corrupting' than one who gives the same amount to two. McCutcheon's practical effect was to enable a single donor to give the per-election maximum to as many federal candidates as they choose in a cycle, and to give the maximum to as many national and state party committees as they choose, without hitting an overall ceiling. The per-election limits themselves -- the cap on what any donor may give to any single candidate per election -- were not before the Court in McCutcheon and remain in force.

For the 2028 presidential election, contribution limits will govern every direct donation made to a presidential candidate's authorized committee. Candidates who accept contributions must register their authorized committee with the FEC (52 U.S.C. Section 30102), and that committee must publicly disclose every contribution above $200, including the contributor's name, mailing address, occupation, and employer (52 U.S.C. Section 30104(b)). In-kind contributions -- goods, services, or use of property provided to the campaign at below-market value -- count against the same per-election limit as cash contributions (11 CFR 100.52). Contributions by foreign nationals are prohibited entirely (52 U.S.C. Section 30121), and contributions from corporations and labor union treasuries directly to candidate committees remain prohibited by 52 U.S.C. Section 30118 regardless of McCutcheon or Citizens United. Bundlers -- individuals who solicit and aggregate contributions from multiple donors -- do not change the per-election limit applicable to each underlying donor: every contributor in a bundled batch is counted individually against their own per-election cap, and the bundler's role is to recruit contributors up to (but not exceeding) their individual limits, not to transmit funds that exceed those limits. The contribution limit is thus both the floor and the ceiling of hard money direct fundraising: every compliant direct donation to a 2028 presidential campaign will fall at or below the FECA per-election cap, and no donation above that cap may be lawfully received by the campaign committee.