United States Order Of Precedence

The United States order of precedence is an advisory document maintained by the Ceremonials Division of the Office of the Chief of Protocol of the United States which lists the ceremonial order, or relative preeminence, for domestic and foreign government officials (military and civilian) at diplomatic, ceremonial, and social events within the United States and abroad. The list is used to mitigate miscommunication and embarrassment in diplomacy, and offer a distinct and concrete spectrum of preeminence for ceremonies. Often the document is used to advise diplomatic and ceremonial event planners on seating charts and order of introduction. Former presidents, vice presidents, first ladies, second ladies, and secretaries of state and retired Supreme Court justices are also included in the list.

The order is established by the president, through the Office of the Chief of Staff, and is maintained by the State Department's Office of the Chief of Protocol. It is only used to indicate ceremonial protocol and has no legal standing; it does not reflect the presidential line of succession or the co-equal status of the branches of government under the Constitution. The Office of the Chief of Protocol posted an updated order of precedence in February 2022.United States Department of State
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Details as of December 9, 2022

Except as otherwise noted, positions in the list are from the following source.

#President of the United StatesSpouses of the president of the United States, the vice president of the United States, governors in their own state and mayors in their own cities are afforded the same rank and courtesy that accompanies their spouses' positions at official functions. Spouses of other federal, state, or municipal government officials are accorded the same rank as the principal at official functions when they are attending together, and they are seated accordingly. This seating courtesy is the only ranking a spouse without title receives in the United States, unless the spouse himself or herself holds a separate position on the order of precedence. ( Joe Biden)
#Vice President of the United States (Kamala Harris)
# Governor of a state – when in own state
# Speaker of the House of Representatives (Nancy Pelosi)
# Chief Justice of the United States (John Roberts)
#Former presidents of the United States or their widows/widowers (by seniority of assuming office):
##Jimmy Carter (January 20, 1977 – January 20, 1981)
##Bill Clinton (January 20, 1993 – January 20, 2001)
##George W. Bush (January 20, 2001 – January 20, 2009)
##Barack Obama (January 20, 2009 – January 20, 2017)
##Donald Trump (January 20, 2017 – January 20, 2021)
#Former vice presidents of the United States or their widows/widowers (by seniority of assuming office):
##Dan Quayle (January 20, 1989 – January 20, 1993)
##Al Gore (January 20, 1993 – January 20, 2001)
##Dick Cheney (January 20, 2001 – January 20, 2009)
## Mike Pence (January 20, 2017 – January 20, 2021)
# American ambassadors extraordinary and plenipotentiary to foreign governments – when at post
# American ambassadors, permanent representatives or representatives to international organizations who hold chief of mission authorityThe American Ambassadors, Permanent Representatives or Representatives to international organizations with Chief of Mission authority include the following: U.S. Mission to the United Nations (USUN) – New York; U.S. Mission to the African Union (USAU) – Addis Ababa; U.S. Representative to the Organization for Security & Cooperation in Europe with the rank of Ambassador (OSCE) – Vienna; U.S. Mission to the Vienna Office of the United Nations (UNVIE) – Vienna; U.S. Mission to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (USNATO) – Brussels; U.S. Representative to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development with the rank of Ambassador (USOECD) – Paris; U.S. Mission to the UN and Other International Organizations – Geneva; U.S. Mission to the European Union (USEU) – Brussels; U.S. Mission to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (USASEAN) – Jakarta; U.S. Mission to the Organization of American States (USOAS) – Washington, DC. – when at post
# American chargé d'affaires ad interim – when at post
# Secretary of State (Antony Blinken)
# President, United Nations General Assembly – when in session (Csaba Kőrösi – when at the United Nations ( António Guterres)
#President, United Nations General Assembly – when not in session
# Ambassadors extraordinary and plenipotentiary of foreign diplomatic missions to the United StatesDiplomatic missions refer to all bilateral missions and the delegations of the European Union and African Union. (in order of presentation of credentials to the President of the United States)
# Associate justices of the Supreme Court (ranked by date of appointment):
##Clarence Thomas (October 18, 1991)
##Samuel Alito (January 31, 2006)
##Sonia Sotomayor (August 8, 2009)
##Elena Kagan (August 7, 2010)
##Neil Gorsuch (April 8, 2017)
##Brett Kavanaugh (October 6, 2018)
##Amy Coney Barrett (October 27, 2020)
##Ketanji Brown Jackson (June 30, 2022)
#Retired chief justices of the United States (ranked by date of appointment; currently none)
#Retired associate justices of the Supreme Court, unless they resigned (ranked by date of appointment):See Associate_Justice_of_the_Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States#Retired_associate_justices for more details about retirement of Associate Justices, as opposed to resignation.
##Sandra Day O'Connor (September 25, 1981 – January 31, 2006)
##Anthony Kennedy (February 18, 1988 – July 31, 2018)
##David Souter (October 9, 1990 – June 29, 2009)
## Stephen Breyer (August 3, 1994 – June 30, 2022)
# The Cabinet (other than Secretary of State), ranked according to the date of establishment of the department,For the purposes of the Order of Precedence, any reference to "executive department" shall mean the Cabinet Departments led by the Cabinet Secretaries. as added by the president,The President may make changes in his or her administration to the Cabinet-rank positions. as follows:
##Secretary of the Treasury (Janet Yellen)
## Secretary of Defense (Lloyd Austin)
## Attorney General (Merrick Garland)
##Secretary of the Interior (Deb Haaland)
## Secretary of Agriculture (Tom Vilsack)
## Secretary of Commerce (Gina Raimondo)
## Secretary of Labor (Marty Walsh)
##Secretary of Health and Human Services ( Xavier Becerra)
##Secretary of Housing and Urban Development ( Marcia Fudge)
##Secretary of Transportation ( Pete Buttigieg)
##Secretary of Energy (Jennifer Granholm)
##Secretary of Education (Miguel Cardona)
##Secretary of Veterans Affairs (Denis McDonough)
##Secretary of Homeland Security (Alejandro Mayorkas)
## White House chief of staff (Ron Klain)
## Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency ( Michael S. Regan)
##Director, Office of Management and Budget ( Shalanda Young)
## Director of National Intelligence (Avril Haines)
##United States trade representative (Katherine Tai)
##Ambassador to the United Nations (Linda Thomas-Greenfield)
##Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers ( Cecilia Rouse)
## Administrator, Small Business Administration (Isabel Guzman)
##Presidential Science Advisor and Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (Arati Prabhakar)
#President pro tempore of the U.S. Senate (Patrick Leahy)
#Senate majority leader (Chuck Schumer)
#Senate minority leader ( Mitch McConnell)
#Senate majority whip (Dick Durbin)
#Senate minority whip (John Thune)
# Senators (by length of service; if the same, by the state's date of admission into the Union or alphabetically by state)
# Governors of states – when outside their own states (relative precedence among governors, all of whom are outside their own state, is determined by each state's date of admission into the Union or alphabetically by state)
##Governor of Delaware ( John Carney)
##Governor of Pennsylvania (Tom Wolf)
##Governor of New Jersey (Phil Murphy)
## Governor of Georgia (Brian Kemp)
##Governor of Connecticut (Ned Lamont)
##Governor of Massachusetts (Charlie Baker)
##Governor of Maryland ( Larry Hogan)
## Governor of South Carolina (Henry McMaster)
##Governor of New Hampshire (Chris Sununu)
##Governor of Virginia ( Glenn Youngkin)
##Governor of New York (Kathy Hochul)
## Governor of North Carolina (Roy Cooper)
##Governor of Rhode Island ( Daniel McKee)
##Governor of Vermont (Phil Scott)
##Governor of Kentucky (Andy Beshear)
## Governor of Tennessee ( Bill Lee)
## Governor of Ohio ( Mike DeWine)
## Governor of Louisiana (John Bel Edwards)
##Governor of Indiana (Eric Holcomb)
##Governor of Mississippi (Tate Reeves)
##Governor of Illinois (J. B. Pritzker)
##Governor of Alabama (Kay Ivey)
##Governor of Maine (Janet Mills)
##Governor of Missouri (Mike Parson)
## Governor of Arkansas (Asa Hutchinson)
## Governor of Michigan (Gretchen Whitmer)
##Governor of Florida (Ron DeSantis)
## Governor of Texas (Greg Abbott)
##Governor of Iowa (Kim Reynolds)
## Governor of Wisconsin (Tony Evers)
## Governor of California (Gavin Newsom)
##Governor of Minnesota (Tim Walz)
##Governor of Oregon (Kate Brown)
## Governor of Kansas (Laura Kelly

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