How many members serve on the House?

There are 435 voting members in the U.S. House of Representatives, with each state's allocation determined by population. The size of the House has been fixed at 435 since 1929, when Congress passed the Permanent Apportionment Act to cap membership and prevent the chamber from growing without limit as the country expanded. Before 1929, the House grew almost every decade as new states joined and population increased. The original House had 65 members in 1789 (with Vermont and Kentucky added shortly after), and it expanded steadily through the 19th and early 20th centuries. By 1911, just before the cap was imposed, it had 435 members, and Congress chose to keep it at that size.

The Constitution itself does not set a specific number for the House. Article I, Section 2 says representatives shall be apportioned among the states according to their population, with each state guaranteed at least one representative. After each ten-year census, the 435 seats are reapportioned among the states based on the new population numbers. When a state grows faster than the national average it picks up House seats; when it grows slower, it loses them.

Reapportionment after the 2020 census handed Texas two new seats, with single new seats going to Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina, and Oregon. Each of California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia gave up one House seat. The District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands send non-voting delegates to the House, but those delegates are not counted toward the 435 voting members.

Each representative serves a two-year term and represents a single congressional district within their state, except in the seven least populous states (Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Delaware, and Montana) that have only one statewide representative. Article I, section 2 sets the qualifications: at least 25 years old, U.S. citizen for at least seven years, and inhabitant of the state of election. The House is led by the Speaker of the House, who is elected by House members at the start of each two-year session. The Speaker controls the floor schedule and is second in line to the presidency.

The fixed size of 435 means that as the U.S. population has grown, each representative now represents many more constituents than in earlier eras. The average congressional district contains roughly 760,000 people based on the 2020 census, far more than the original ratio of about 30,000 constituents per representative envisioned in the Constitution.