The Trump administration is requiring nearly all Consumer Financial Protection Bureau staff members around the country to work out of a new office in Washington, a move that some employees fear is a stealth reduction-in-force plan.
The four-part return-to-office plan will begin June 1 with operations staff setting up a new office in Southwest DC, according to a Wednesday email to CFPB personnel obtained by Bloomberg Law.
The roughly 650 employees stationed within 50 miles of Washington will be required to report to the new office beginning July 13 and the remaining 450 spread around the country will have to show up by Aug. 31, according to the email. While the CFPB will review accommodation requests, “decisions will not be based on the convenience of the employee,” the email said.
But the new office only has room for around 550 CFPB employees, which matches a reduction-in-force plan the agency submitted to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in March. The CFPB’s return-to-office plan repeatedly states that it will be “subject to available office space.”
The plan doesn’t indicate what will happen if workers don’t report to the Washington office or are denied accommodation requests, but there’s a widespread belief among agency employees that many will resign or be terminated and that the plan is designed to get around a potential court hold on the CFPB’s RIF proposal, according to multiple people familiar with the situation who requested anonymity to discuss internal conversations.
Representatives for the CFPB and the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents most CFPB employees, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Office Shutdown
CFPB employees were instructed to stay home after acting Director Russell Vought took over in February 2025. Vought made the agency’s previous headquarters near the White House off-limits to career employees, although many political appointees have been working there.
The lease on the original CFPB headquarters has been terminated, according to the agency’s Wednesday email.
The CFPB under Vought also closed its regional offices, but it still had employees spread around the country, with the highest concentrations in California, New York, Illinois, and Texas, according to Office of Personnel Management data.
CFPB examiners are also typically based out of regional offices so they can visit banks with over $10 billion in assets, payday lenders, debt collectors, and other companies under agency supervision. But the CFPB has curtailed the number of examinations it’s undertaking and shifted to virtual, rather than in-person, reviews.
It’s unclear whether CFPB examiners will be subject to the return-to-office requirement. The CFPB in its email said it will consider whether to exempt “hard to fill positions that directly impact the Bureau’s mission, statutory authority and/or execution of the Administration’s agenda.”
Vought and his team will also be reviewing all reasonable accommodation requests that were previously granted, according to the email.
Court Oversight
Whether the CFPB will be able to implement its return-to-office plan may come down to the DC Circuit.
The full appellate court is currently considering whether the agency can move forward with its new workforce plan in litigation filed by the NTEU and other plaintiffs.
It’s possible the appellate court could send the workforce reduction plan back to Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the US District Court for the District of Columbia for further review.
The union could also ask the DC Circuit or Jackson to review the return-to-office plan before it can take effect.