H.R. 8464, Stopping Fraudulent Payments Act

H.R 8464 would allow the government to pause, place conditions on, or make partial disbursements for payments when an agency determines that there is an elevated risk of fraud. Under current law, before the government sends money to an employee, contractor, grantee, beneficiary, or other recipient, that disbursement must be certified with a payment voucher. The bill would allow executive branch agencies to delay payments by up to 30 days. The Department of the Treasury would be authorized to issue orders for corrective action based on information in its Do Not Pay system by directing those agencies to recertify payment vouchers. (Federal agencies and state-administered federally funded programs use that system to verify recipients’ identity and eligibility to receive payments.)

The bill also would require agencies to notify recipients of payment delays within two days of a determination of elevated fraud risk and provide a formal process for recipients to contest that determination. Finally, the department would be required to issue regulations within 180 days of enactment and to report to the Congress annually on the results of implementing the bill’s provisions.

The estimated budgetary effects of implementing the legislation are shown in Table 1; the effects on fraudulent payments are not shown in that table. The costs of the legislation fall within most budget functions.

The federal government currently operates extensive fraud prevention programs under existing statutes and through Executive Order 14249, issued in March 2025. The Prompt Payment Act and other program-specific requirements limit the type of payments that can be paused under current law and CBO is unclear how H.R. 8464 would interact with those requirements.

Information from the Department of the Treasury suggests that most of the bill’s provisions would codify and expand fraud prevention activities outlined in the March 2025 executive order, which directed federal agencies to conduct fraud screening before payments are disbursed from the Treasury. That order also extended access to the Do Not Pay system to the entire federal government. CBO expects that the bill would likely reduce the number of payments to individuals and entities seeking to defraud the government and thus would reduce direct spending. CBO does not have sufficient information about how the executive order has changed payments or, importantly, how the bill would be implemented relative to that executive order. As a result, CBO has no basis for determining the magnitude of the reductions in direct spending that would result from enacting H.R. 8464.

Based on the cost of similar activities, CBO estimates that implementing H.R. 8464 would cost $25 million over the 2027-2031 period for administrative activities and reports; any related spending would be subject to the availability of appropriated funds.

Enacting H.R. 8464 could affect direct spending by some agencies that are allowed to use fees, receipts from the sale of goods, and other collections to cover operating costs. CBO estimates that any net changes in direct spending by those agencies would be negligible because most of them can adjust amounts collected to reflect changes in operating costs.

The CBO staff contact for this estimate is Matthew Pickford. The estimate was reviewed by H. Samuel Papenfuss, Deputy Director of Budget Analysis.