Providing an Order of Succession Within the Department of the Treasury

The order establishes a ranked succession list of ten Treasury Department officials — starting with any Under Secretary and ending with the Deputy Commissioner of the IRS — who may serve as acting Secretary when both the Secretary and Deputy Secretary have died, resigned, or are otherwise unable to perform their duties. It revokes Executive Order 13735 from August 2016, which had set the prior succession order.

The order includes several limits: officials already serving in an acting capacity in one of the listed roles may not use this order to claim the acting Secretary position; all designees must independently meet the Federal Vacancies Reform Act's eligibility requirements; and the President retains discretion to depart from this succession list when designating an acting Secretary.

Senior officials within the Department of the Treasury — including Under Secretaries, the General Counsel, Assistant Secretaries, the IRS Commissioner, and Bureau of the Fiscal Service leadership — whose acting-Secretary responsibilities are now formally ranked.

Treasury has a clear, updated chain of acting authority during any leadership gap involving both the Secretary and Deputy Secretary, reducing ambiguity about who can legally sign orders, execute financial operations, or speak for the department in an emergency.