Handbook·Money in politics

What is FARA

Explainer·Verified 2026-07-10

The answer

The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), passed in 1938, requires anyone doing political, lobbying, PR, or advocacy work in the U.S. for a foreign government, political party, or similar foreign principal to register with the Justice Department and publicly disclose the relationship, activities, and pay.¹ The folk model assumes a law on the books for 88 years means foreign lobbying is tightly tracked. The plain mechanic that breaks it is a second, weaker disclosure law running alongside FARA, and lobbyists for foreign clients routinely get to choose which one applies to them.

How it actually works

A person or firm acting as an agent of a foreign principal must register within 10 days and then file a public Supplemental Statement every six months covering activities, money received and spent, and political contributions. The FARA Unit, inside DOJ's National Security Division, administers this and posts filings at efile.fara.gov, searchable by registrant, foreign principal, or country.²

The main structural hole is the overlap with the Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA). Registered active FARA filings peaked at 916 in 1987, then fell sharply after 1993 filing fees and the 1995 LDA took effect, according to DOJ's own inspector general.³ Lobbyists working for foreign commercial clients, rather than foreign governments or parties directly, can often file under the LDA instead. LDA filings require less detail on activities, don't require submitting distributed materials, and don't require labeling informational materials as coming from a foreign principal.⁴ DOJ has never published clear guidance on the "principal beneficiary" test meant to decide which law applies, leaving the choice largely to the lobbyist and client.⁵

DOJ's FARA Unit historically lacked subpoena power to compel records from suspected unregistered agents, something a 2016 inspector general audit recommended fixing.³ Enforcement has picked up since Paul Manafort was charged in 2017 and pleaded guilty in 2018 to a conspiracy count that included willfully failing to register under FARA and falsifying FARA-related statements, tied to more than $17 million in unregistered lobbying for Ukraine's government, the Party of Regions, and former President Viktor Yanukovych between 2012 and 2014.⁶ That case is widely credited with reviving DOJ's attention to FARA after decades of near-dormancy. Cases have followed across administrations and countries since.⁷ Sen. Robert Menendez was convicted in July 2024 on charges including acting as an unregistered agent of Egypt.⁸ Linda Sun, a former deputy chief of staff to the New York Governor, was indicted in September 2024 over alleged undisclosed work for the government of China, a case that was pending, not yet adjudicated, as of this research.⁹ Lobbyist Barry Bennett, FARA-registered for Qatar's embassy, and his business partner Douglas Watts reached deferred prosecution agreements in January 2024 over an undisclosed $773,000 public relations campaign against Saudi Arabia that never appeared on Bennett's FARA filings.¹⁰

Who holds the power

DOJ's FARA Unit decides who must register and can refer cases for civil or criminal enforcement, but the choice of which disclosure law applies, FARA or the weaker LDA, often sits with the lobbyist and client rather than the government. Renewed prosecutions since Manafort show enforcement can move, but the LDA carve-out remains the standing structural gap.¹¹

Where you come in

Anyone can search efile.fara.gov by country or organization name to see who is registered to represent a given foreign government or party, and read the actual contracts and activity reports on file.

Glossary: FARA

Sources