Constitutional Requirements for the Presidency

The Constitution of the United States has several requirements that every person must meet to become President of the United States. Those requirements are:

• They must be a natural-born citizen of the United States.

• They must be at least 35 years old.

• They must have lived in the United States for at least 14 years.

Additionally, the president-elect must swear an oath of office before they become president. 

This article describes these requirements. It also answers frequently asked questions about the requirements to become president. 

Constitutional Basis

Article II of the U.S. Constitution enumerates the executive branch's powers and limits. The president of the United States of America sits at the top of the executive branch. They choose their vice president, and they may appoint cabinet members and heads of departments. 

Article II Section 1, Clause 5 of the Constitution states:

"No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States."

Given the president's importance within the United States government, it may come as little surprise that the Framers instituted several threshold requirements for the position. The following sections describe these requirements. 

Natural-Born Citizen Requirement

As the Library of Congress notes, the Framers adopted the "natural-born citizen" requirement to:

• Ensure that the president was loyal to the United States

• Protect the United States, the U.S. government, and the Electoral College against interference from foreign governments

As Justice Joseph Story noted, the requirement also protects the United States from "ambitious foreigners" who want to gain the office of the president. 

The Constitution does not define the term "natural born citizen." Scholars suggest that the Framers understood it to mean a person who was a U.S. citizen at birth. In other words, the person was born in the United States, and they did not have to go through the naturalization process. 

The First Congress also passed the Naturalization Act of 1790. It provided that anyone born to American citizens outside the United States was a "natural born citizen." Notably, British law provided a similar rule for citizenship. 

Several presidential candidates were born outside of the United States, including:

• Arizona Senator John McCain (born in the Panama Canal Zone)

• Michigan Governor George Romney (born in Mexico)

• Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater (born in Arizona before it became a state)

Had they won their elections, they likely would have met the requirement. However, the Supreme Court has never decided a case regarding whether a person born outside the United States could become president. Therefore, there is no guarantee that such a person would meet the requirement. 

Age Requirement

The Constitution requires the president to be at least 35 years of age. This requirement ensures that the president will have "the necessary maturity for the position as well as sufficient time in a public role for the electorate to be able to assess the merits of a presidential candidate." 

As Justice Story wrote, the nature of the executive power requires "solid wisdom." He concluded that an age requirement was appropriate for the head of the executive department.

In The Federalist No. 64, John Jay wrote that the age requirement also limits presidential candidates to "those who are best able to promote [national interests], and whose reputation for integrity inspires and merits confidence."

The Constitution also sets age requirements for other civil officers. For example, Senators must be at least 30 years old. You must be at least 25 years old to serve in the House of Representatives. 

Residency Requirement

The Framers debated the residency requirement for the presidency and members of Congress. They rejected the British law prohibiting anyone born outside of its kingdom from joining Parliament.

Instead, they created a system where anyone could become a member of Congress. However, they had to satisfy specific residency requirements. They created a seven-year requirement for state representatives and nine years for senators. 

As James Madison from Virginia noted in The Federalist No. 62, the nine-year residency requirement for the Senate was "a compromise between a 'total exclusion of adopted citizens,' and an 'indiscriminate and hasty admission of them.'"

The Framers adopted a 14-year residency requirement for the presidency. The Library of Congress notes that the Framers chose the 14-year requirement "to ensure that the people may have a full opportunity to know [the candidate's] character and merits and that he may have mingled in the duties, and felt the interests, and understood the principles, and nourished the attachments, belonging to every citizen in a republican government."

Justice Story also noted that the candidate does not have to be physically present in the United States for 14 years to satisfy the requirement. However, they must generally have been domiciled within the United States for 14 years. 

Oath of Office Requirement

Article II, Section 1, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution states the following:

"Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:– "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

The clause indicates that the president must take the oath before assuming office. However, President George Washington took office on March 4, 1789. He did not take the oath until April 30, 1789. 

Until 1933, the president-elect would take the oath of office in March of the year after the election. However, the Twentieth Amendment to the Constitution changed the procedure. 

Today, the president-elect takes the oath of office on January 20th following the presidential election. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court usually administers the oath at noon on that day.

Until the president-elect takes the oath, the sitting president remains the President of the United States. Once the president takes the oath, they assume all the powers of the office. 

Other Constitutional Limits on the Presidency

Three other constitutional provisions limit who can become president of the United States. 

Article I, Section 3, Clause 7 deals with presidential impeachments. The Senate may disqualify anyone it convicts from serving as an officer of the United States. 

The Fourteenth Amendment also limits who can become president. It prohibits anyone who swore to uphold the Constitution from becoming president if they rebelled against America. Congress can lift the disqualification if two-thirds of both the House of Representatives and the Senate vote to do so. 

The Twenty-Second Amendment bars anyone from serving more than two terms as president.

Frequently Asked Questions

This section answers frequently asked questions about the constitutional requirements for presidential eligibility. 

Does a criminal indictment or conviction prevent someone from running for president?

Not necessarily. The Constitution doesn't address this issue directly. Some federal statutes (like the one that makes mishandling official records a crime) disqualify a convicted person from holding public office. Nevertheless, there is ongoing debate about whether such a punishment contravenes Article II of the Constitution.

If the Senate convicts someone in an impeachment trial, it can bar them from holding federal office. Similarly, anyone "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" against the United States cannot hold public office under the Fourteenth Amendment's disqualification clause.

Can someone who is incarcerated be president?

An incarcerated person can run for and, in theory, become president. In practice, Congress would likely find them unfit to serve because their imprisonment would hinder their ability to perform their duties.

But there's nothing legally stopping an incarcerated person from running for president. Several other people have run for president while in prison. For example, Eugene V. Debs ran for president while incarcerated, receiving almost one million votes. 

However, if someone were elected from behind bars, they would likely struggle to perform their presidential duties. In that case, they might be found unfit to serve and removed from office under the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. 

Can a naturalized citizen run for president?

No. The Constitution states that only natural-born citizens are eligible for the presidency. Although the Supreme Court has never issued a final ruling on the issue, the Constitution's text appears to disqualify anyone who has undergone the naturalization process.

As noted above, legal scholars have speculated that a person born outside the country to parents who are American citizens is likely a "natural born citizen." However, someone who goes through the naturalization process is necessarily not a natural-born citizen. Therefore, they are ineligible for the presidency.