Bipartisan housing bill becomes law Friday without Trump's signature

The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act becomes law on Friday whether or not President Trump signs it. Congress sent the bill to his desk on June 29. Under Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution, a bill becomes law if the president neither signs nor vetoes it within 10 days, not counting Sundays, while Congress is in session. That window closes July 10.

Trump has declined to sign the measure. He canceled a planned signing ceremony on June 24 and said he would not sign until Congress passes a separate elections bill he backs. Because he has not vetoed the housing bill either, the constitutional clock runs out this week and the bill takes effect on its own.

What passed, and by how much

The Senate passed the bill 85-5 on June 22. The House passed it 358-32 on June 23. Both margins clear the two-thirds threshold needed to override a veto, so a veto would not have stopped the bill in any case.

The legislation, filed as H.R. 6644, combines the House-passed Housing for the 21st Century Act with the Senate's Renewing Opportunity in the American Dream (ROAD) to Housing Act. The Senate Banking Committee chairman, Tim Scott of South Carolina, and the ranking Democrat, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, negotiated the combined text, along with Representatives French Hill of Arkansas and Maxine Waters of California. The New York Times described it as the largest housing bill since the Cranston-Gonzalez National Affordable Housing Act of 1990.

What the bill does

The act runs to more than 40 sections aimed mostly at expanding housing supply and lowering building costs. Among the provisions with the most direct effect:

• Institutional investors. Section 901 bars large institutional investors that own at least 350 single-family homes from buying more. The bill exempts investors buying or building homes specifically for the rental market but requires those homes to be sold to an individual buyer after seven years.
• Manufactured housing. Section 301 eliminates the federal requirement that manufactured homes be built on a permanent chassis, the steel frame that lets a home be towed. Analysts who backed the change say removing the requirement can cut construction costs, and the bill makes the Department of Housing and Urban Development the lead authority on energy standards for those homes.
• Local building incentives. The bill ties a share of Community Development Block Grant money to how much housing a locality produces, with added funds for places that build faster and smaller reductions for those that lag. A separate $200 million annual grant program rewards local governments that show measurable increases in supply.
• Digital dollar. Section 1001 bars the Federal Reserve from creating a central bank digital currency through 2030.

The White House issued a statement of administration policy in March supporting the combined bill, before the signing dispute began.

Why Trump withheld his signature

Trump tied the housing bill to the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, known as the SAVE Act, which would require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. The bill has passed the House in prior forms but has not cleared the Senate, where it would need 60 votes.

In a post on Truth Social on June 24, Trump wrote that the housing "News Conference and Signing is hereby cancelled until such time as we pass the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT, which I consider to be a National Emergency." He described the housing bill as "of minor importance" in the same post.

Speaker Mike Johnson said last week that the House would try to move the SAVE Act through budget reconciliation after the July Fourth recess, a route that would let it pass the Senate with a simple majority rather than 60 votes. Whether the SAVE Act's provisions qualify for reconciliation, which is limited to measures with a direct budgetary effect, has not been resolved.

What each side said

Hill, one of the housing bill's authors, told CNBC on June 24 that Trump "picked the day, and now he's chosen to change the day. So we'll let him do that, and we'll see what he decides to do."

Warren wrote on X: "Huge bipartisan majorities in Congress passed a bill to lower housing costs. But at the 11th hour, Donald Trump is refusing to sign it into law. His policies have made your costs go up, and he doesn't care."

The White House has not said whether Trump will veto the SAVE Act's opponents' preferred alternatives or take any further action on the housing bill before Friday. Trump retains no power to block the housing bill once the 10-day period ends; the only route to stop it, a veto, would have required a signature action he has not taken and would have faced veto-proof majorities in both chambers.

What happens next

Once the bill becomes law, its provisions take effect on the schedule written into the text. Some sections direct HUD and other agencies to begin rulemaking or studies, which can take months to produce binding rules. The institutional-investor limit and the manufactured-housing chassis change are among the provisions that operate through agency implementation rather than immediately.

The SAVE Act remains separate and unpassed. Its path in the Senate, whether through reconciliation or a standalone vote, is the open question Trump raised when he set aside his pen.