How many representatives are there in the House?

There are 435 voting members in the United States House of Representatives, with the number for each state 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 avoid the chamber growing without limit as the country expanded. Before that law, the House grew almost every decade following the census. The original House had 65 members in 1789, and it expanded steadily as new states joined and population grew.

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. Today, after each ten-year census, the 435 seats are reapportioned among the states based on the new population numbers. States that gain population gain seats; states that lose population relative to others lose seats. Texas, Florida, and other growing states have added House seats in recent decades, while states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New York have lost them.

Each representative serves a two-year term and represents a single congressional district within their state, except in the seven least populous states that have only one statewide representative. The boundaries of these districts are redrawn after each census in a process called redistricting, which is controlled by state legislatures or independent commissions depending on state law. 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 do not count toward the 435 voting members.

Members must be at least 25 years old, U.S. citizens for seven or more years, and inhabitants of the state from which they are elected. The House is led by the Speaker of the House, who is elected by House members at the start of each two-year session.